The Cruel Truth

Amanda Miller

Scholarship Essay

In 2018, 40,000
people died from driving related accidents. Though it may not seem
like a lot compared to our massive population of 3.272 million, let’s
put the number into perspective.  If that is 40,000 people over
a total of 365 days, that means an average of 109 people a day died
from an activity so many people take for granted.  Absolutely no
one thought it would be them as one of those 109 but it happened.
People took chances that make it riskier, too. They got distracted
for one second and changed the course of their lives. What can we do
to change that? How can people open their eyes to this startling
statistic?

The number of
licensed drivers in 2018 was 225,721,700
in the U.S. That’s almost 69% of the country’s population. 
Imagine if all of those people were given these statistics. Would it
have changed the way they drove? Would it have caused people to
rethink their actions? Everyone has to complete some form of driver’s
education to receive their license.  Rather than only teaching
the mechanics, what if the cruel truth was revealed, too? What if
people saw that they were taking on a huge responsibility? Once
people see that their actions have consequences, many are more
willing to take responsibility and change their actions to not cause
harm. Even if not everyone takes it to heart, if that death toll was
reduced by even one hundred, that means one hundred more people would
still have their loved ones.

I
have seen my family drive irresponsibly. I have seen my family text
and drive more times than I can count.  No one has ever been in
an accident because of it, but I’ve been there when they’ve had
to jerk the car back to their lane because they weren’t paying
attention. It worries me because what if someone was in the lane
beside them? What could have happened?  My friend was on her way
to see me one day and hadn’t shown up for twenty minutes. I
learned she had dropped her phone and reached for it. She had taken
her eyes off the road for only one second and ran directly into the
side of a car pulling out in front of her.  Luckily the worst
that happened was a couple burns but it could have been significantly
worse. Though these actions had no drastic effects, what if they had?
Everyone knows that fatal accidents happen. What stops it from being
someone you or someone you know in a fatal accident if distracted
driving remains rampant?

Education
is extremely important to make better and safer drivers.  If
people realize that their actions have consequences, it may cause a
change in their behaviors.  If these statistics are presented
more openly to drivers than they currently are, who knows what it
would do.  No one goes out into the road expecting it to be
them, but it happens so much more than we think.

Sources:

https://ohsonline.com/articles/2019/02/18/nsc-motor-vehicle-deaths.aspx?m=1

https://www.census.gov/popclock/

https://hedgescompany.com/blog/2018/10/number-of-licensed-drivers-usa/