A Different Approach to Driver Education

We all know drunk driving kills. We all know speeding kills. We all know checking a text behind the wheel kills.

And yet, in 2021, 13,384 lives were taken by drunk drivers. 12,330 people were killed due to people speeding. 3,522 lives were lost to distracted driving.

If we know the dangers, why do we still see horrific crashes in the news? Why are we still losing our mothers, fathers, sisters, brothers, sons, daughters, husbands, wives, and friends to reckless driving?

Maybe we need to approach driver education differently. Perhaps seeing the statistics isn’t enough. How bizarre is that? The statistics, the numbers of precious lives we lose, are far too large – yet somehow also aren’t enough. Maybe we cannot grasp a loss so large; maybe we cannot fathom that tens of thousands of people – people who laughed, who loved, who dreamed – are just ripped away from the world every year.

So perhaps we need different facts and statistics, those we can wrap our minds around.

Let’s start with drunk driving. Of the 13,384 total people who died due to alcohol-related accidents in 2021, over 1 in 6 were lost in an accident where the driver’s blood alcohol concentration (BAC) ranged from .01 to .07. Although drinks affect people differently, in general, a level of intoxication within this range can be achieved with less than one standard American beer or even just several sips of wine. That is to say, 2,266 people were killed by drivers who consumed one drink or maybe even less than a full drink and made the decision to drive. They may have believed they were “fine, just tipsy” or “alright, just buzzed,” but tragedy struck. So let’s get this straight: .08 BAC is the legal limit for driving, not the safe limit. Driving with any alcohol in your system increases your risk of an accident.

Next, consider the issue of speeding. You may be in a rush. You may be running late. You may be thinking that going 5 to 10 over the limit won’t be a big deal. However, the truth is chilling. If you hit a child at 30 MPH, there is an 80% chance they will live – but if you hit them going 40 MPH, there is an 80% chance they will die. Knowing this fact prompts you to reevaluate how important that meeting you’re running late for really is. You know no meeting could ever come before a life. Speed limits exist for a reason, and it is far better to arrive late than to not arrive at all.

Finally, distracted driving: a problem that increases in prevalence as we grow more dependent on our phones. Let’s say that text you want to send really does take “just a second”; at a speed of 45 miles per hour, one second is 66 feet of distance. That means that taking your eyes off the road for a second practically equates to driving 66 feet with your eyes closed. Now, realistically, a quick text might take 5 seconds to type out and send. That’s going nearly the length of an entire football field with your eyes off the road. So, think again: is that text that will take you “just a bit” to type truly as harmless as you may want to believe?

Our current approach to driver education attempts to scare drivers into being vigilant by using shocking fatality statistics. However, it seems that people somehow shrug these staggering numbers off, saying “it’ll never happen to me.” To combat this behavior and provide an effective driver education, we must implement a different approach, one with facts that deter us from making our everyday excuses. Instead of only promulgating huge numbers that sadly do not stick with drivers as they should, we must provide impactful knowledge that eliminates ignorant thoughts such as “it’s just one drink,” “it’s just a few miles over the limit,” and “it’ll only be a few seconds looking away from the road.”

We must put an end to this ignorant excuses by teaching how disastrous they really are, the impacts that they can have. We must emphasize that the only safe BAC to drive with is 0.00. We must educate our drivers that if a child is hit at 30 MPH, they have an 80% chance of survival, whereas if they are hit at 40 MPH, they have an 80% chance of dying. We must underscore that one second of distraction behind the wheel equals dozens of feet driven blindly.

Every 16 minutes, a precious life is stolen from us by a car accident. However, tens of thousands of deaths can be prevented if we simply educate our driver population, if we learn the real risks behind what we are doing. If we take the time to learn and truly understand the risks, we will drive more vigilantly. We will save more lives. We will have more time to cherish with our loved ones.

It is imperative that we learn to drive mindfully, to stay sober, take our time, and keep our eyes on the road like our life is on the line – because it is.