Fresh Eyes for Old Problems

My daughter watches me drive from her car seat. I can see her in my rearview mirror, and when she catches my eye, she grins and giggles. Though she is far too young to understand the nuances of driving from that vantage point, I can’t help but drive more responsibly under her scrutiny. I don’t touch my phone. I don’t eat while driving. When another driver does something annoying or dangerous, I take a breath and calmly adjust. Even now at her young age, she is learning which things are important, and driving safely is most certainly that.

In 2019, there were 36,355 motor vehicle crash deaths in the United States. That was more than double the average of 28 other high-income countries that year, and the numbers increased in 2020 and 2021 (CDC). One conclusion we can draw from this troubling statistic is the need for better driver education. As of 2022, one in ten Americans still don’t wear a seatbelt, despite the well-publicized safety benefits – though an estimated 15,000 lives are saved each year from seatbelts, there were still over 2,500 deaths in 2017 due to people driving or riding unbuckled (NHTSA). Intoxicated driving is another enormous contributor, and despite media campaigns to reduce that behavior, the numbers are on the rise. Couple those two bad habits with Americans’ propensity for speeding, and it starts to paint a more complete picture.

Fortunately, there are things we can do. The Department of Transportation endorses something called the Safe System Approach. What makes the approach unique is the way it attempts to account for inevitable human mistakes and minimize the damage they cause. The Safe System Approach uses targeted education to encourage drivers to make safer decisions. Teaching drivers about the three most common behavioral causes of fatal car accidents (speeding, intoxication, and no seatbelt), as well as the compounding effect of engaging in more than one of these behaviors at a time, should help people understand the importance of diligence in driver safety.

What makes the issue a little tricky is that most people are safe most of the time. It’s individual lapses in judgment – choices that seem at the time to be insignificant – which ultimately lead to the majority of driving fatalities. That’s why the Safe System Approach also pursues other avenues of safety on the road. One route is to redesign roads to make crosswalks, bike lanes, and road signs more visible. In all cases, the Department of Transportation emphasizes the need for redundancy in design. As any computer programmer can tell you, elements of a system inevitably fail, so you need backups in place that will keep people safe and keep the system running properly. Using statistics and science to rethink speed limits, using the latest materials and techniques to design safer cars, and redefining emergency response protocols are all important tools in acknowledging the existence of human error and finding a way to make driving safer despite that.

I received my driver’s license when I was 18. As soon as I was free to drive without supervision, the bad habits started. I raced friends at stoplights, I tried to beat yellow lights, I imagined I was Vin Diesel as I took corners way faster than was safe. About three months after receiving my license, I crashed. No injuries, no fatalities, thank God, but it certainly left me rattled.

Though the crash did convince me to stop pretending I was in a Fast and Furious movie, I continued to speed until many years later, after driving from San Francisco to LA for a film production. I drove 90 mph most of the way and was the first to arrive at the production office 5 hours later. The next to show up was Alessandro, one of the producers. He had also driven down from San Francisco and it turned out we had left at the same time. When he heard how fast I had driven he was appalled. He had driven the speed limit, 70mph, and had arrived only 40 minutes later.

If you ask an actuary, for every 10 mph of increased speed, the risk of dying in a crash doubles. Speeding on that trip gained me 40 minutes of sitting around and a 200% increased chance of killing myself and/or someone else in a crash. On a short trip to the grocery store or to work, the time gained is even less. It’s just not worth the risk. I don’t speed anymore.

Incidentally, my cautious driving habits have started rubbing off on my wife, my best friend, and my brother. One of the most important and simple ways to increase driver safety on the roads is to set a good example. Alessandro my driving habits forever, simply by providing a reasonable and obvious alternative. My wife noticed how relaxed I am when I drive and started trying to emulate it.

Now my daughter watches me drive. Everyday she is learning from the examples my wife and I set. I hope that through my driving habits, I can keep her safe and do my part to encourage a new generation of responsible drivers.