Safe Driving Saves Lives

There are many reasons to be a safe driver. When driving, your life and the lives of those on the road are in your hands. The amount of people who die a year due to unsafe driving is startling, and there are steps society can take to prevent that. Personally, I have had an experience with unsafe driving and road rage many times; however, there was one experience I had as a child that has changed my view on driving forever.

When I was seven, my father and I were driving to his house from my mom’s. We were stopped at a four-way stop sign and it was his turn to go. Instead, another driver comes speeding along and cuts us off. To me, this was not a big deal. We were not close to being in a car wreck, and my mother had always taught me to be patient with drivers because you do not know where they are headed and for what reason. My father on the other hand was furious. He sped up to the left to the truck that had cut us off and rolled down my window. The driver in the other vehicle did the same and they began a screaming match across from me. With profanity and emotions flying, both my dad and the other driver agreed to pull over into a parking lot to fight. I was terrified. I was already sobbing, but I had begun hyperventilating. I pleaded with my dad not to pull over. The other driver had already pulled into a parking lot and my dad was about to. I do not know what caused my dad to continue driving and not pull over. I hope he saw how petrified of the situation I was. I remember my body shaking with inconsolable sobs the rest of the fifteen-minute drive. That day made me afraid to drive, not because of myself, but because of the reactions others may have to my driving.

That traumatizing day taught me many lessons, but the number one being that I cannot control how people react to me, especially not on the road. It also made me realize that there are many dangerous and reckless drivers on the streets, making the roads a scary place. I think there are measures that can be taken to prevent careless driving. For starters, I think evaluating someone to see if they have anger issues could help with road rage and road rage accidents. If you cannot pass the evaluation, you would not be able to drive. Of course, there are more reasons for car crashes besides road rage. I think if cars had a breathalyzer that the driver had to breathe into before the car would start would prevent drunk driving accidents. For the problem of phone distractions while driving, as technology advances, there will be ways to combat this. Phones can already connect to a car’s Bluetooth. Perhaps in the future when a phone connects to the car, it is locked until the car is parked or turned off. To battle people just being reckless drivers, there needs to be more education on what reckless driving can do, and people should be required to retake their driving test after a certain number of years.

Personally, I take many steps to be a safe driver. I constantly am scanning my mirrors as well as my surroundings. I am a defensive driver and when offensive drivers come my way, I let them pass me and continue on their way. I do not go on my phone when driving, and I do not have more than two people in the car with me when I am driving. I feel like everyone should follow certain standards when driving to be safer. I know that if I am a good driver, that is one less person on the road to not have to worry about.

Driving is a daunting task. There are drivers who are drunk, drivers on their phone, drivers listening to music too loud, or drivers with too many people in their car. If society can take any of these problems away, they should strive to. We want the roads to be safe for us and future driving generations to come. More people should not be dying from driving than they are in combat. While driving, we need to be thinking about everyone on the road, not just ourselves, and we need to be cautious because it may just save a life.