Driver’s Safety

Driver’s education is a crucial element to travel in the United States. Since this country covers a wide range of open land, individuals must learn to drive in order to reach family, friends, basic resources, and school/work. Therefore, there is also a heavy amount of traffic to navigate through that can be challenging to drivers with all types of experience. To counteract this issue, a proper education will instill the most ideal types of thoughts and reflexes to have in a dangerous scenario on the road. The priority of this education is to protect the health and safety of both the drivers and the pedestrians they may encounter. Consequently, this also becomes a version of ethical training, as drivers learn what takes precedence from behind the wheel. Once there is a change in perspective, actions will naturally follow in a heroic form. Steps that can be made to ensure the safety of those on the road include taking the role of a driver seriously, being aware of one’s surroundings, maintaining compassion for others, and taking physical action in preventing accidents from occurring.

Understanding perspectives has always been a key feature to social behavior, yet once someone involves themselves with other vehicles, it becomes much more difficult to empathize with other people. Instead, they may only see their surroundings as obstacles, including vehicles with good people inside. This is why it is important for driver’s education to include the awareness of how severely accidents on the road effect people. It is especially important to express how it may be “you” breathing your last breath, since it becomes easier to victim blame with a lack of empathy. In summary, the first step that must be taken by drivers is understanding their roles and assessing how they might express their desire for safety by acting as they wish to be treated.

The second task is to gain an awareness of your surroundings, which must continue at all times. When buckling, adjusting the mirrors, and preparing to move a vehicle, it is important to acknowledge why these actions are necessary and how it affects the people within your vicinity. Moreover, as the car is moving, drivers must maintain a mental image of their surroundings by taking advantage of the ability to check mirrors and blind spots. In this way, you will be able to more easily spot reckless drivers and/or potential accidents.

The third step is very similar to the first, which is to maintain a sense of compassion for others on the road. While there are still drivers that can act in a self-centered way, being angry or wishing some type of revenge on them can put even the best drivers at risk. Similarly to using a phone while driving, reacting negatively to others on the road can fill you with many distracting afterthoughts. Additionally, having this type of perspective can also push a person to act impulsively, in which they may speed or act disrespectful to other drivers unrelated to the incident that put them in a negative state.

The fourth step to driver’s safety involves the physical actions the driver must take to ensure the protection of themselves and others. After all thoughts are in order and the driver is in a calm, well-rounded state, this is when they must begin acting in accordance with their thoughts. Distracted driving can come in many forms, some of which include reading or responding to texts/calls, being absorbed in conversation with passengers, and completing unnecessary tasks (ex: putting on makeup, shaving, etc.). To understand what might be considered distracted driving, one must identify its three categories: visual (looking away from the road), manual (removing your hands from the wheel), and cognitive (driving with a lack of attention). In an effort to avoid distracted driving of any sort, drivers must take action by keeping their phone out of reach, turning down the volume of the radio, assuring that your passengers can also act respectfully, and more according to what distracting tendencies you may have.

I feel that I understand best why drivers safety is important, as I have had experience from both ends of the spectrum. When riding with my father on a very typical day, our car had spiraled out of control by the slight tilt of the wheel, yet my father was fully aware of our surroundings and redirected us to an empty half of the road. Thus, we were able to easily continue the drive back home without any injury or damage to the car. Unlike this incident, I had ridden with a reckless friend a year later, having one of the most traumatic experiences of my life. Initially, I hoped that this person would take me home after our tennis practice, yet he felt the need to be entertaining in our time together. When the topic of “drifting” came up in our conversation, he decided that it would be most impressive to try this himself. With no control over the car, it spun over a curb in a second, with still enough time for me to grieve my short-lived life. Upon stopping on what was undeniably not a road, we called the police and our parents to take us home in a much safer manner. I never appreciated my dad more than when he took me home and only had comforting things to say rather than ranting about what occurred. At that point on, I refused to ride with that person and reorientated what I considered about being a driver myself.

Thoughts of a near-death experience follows people far beyond the time it takes to physically recover. I put a heavy focus on organizing one’s thoughts when driving safely, as I had hoped that my friend would have considered the dangers of his actions before doing them. When looking at past car accident cases, the topic of “I thought” and “didn’t know” comes up frequently as a line of defense, yet there is nothing good about these kind of perspectives. Drivers should be aware that their actions have consequences, and prioritize processing everything before choosing how to behave on the road. As such, I personally choose to take the steps previously stated, and make additional precautions by carefully choosing who I get into a moving vehicle with. While some might consider this a “rude” choice to make, it is my own life that I gamble with by being indecisive. Therefore, I strongly recommend that you make the same choice and value life as an educated driver.