A BS-Free Guide to Driving Safely

Driving has become an integral part of our modern world, and one would think that as the use of cars expands, we as a society would continue to find ways to make using motor vehicles safer. Sadly, this doesn’t seem to be the case. Every year, approximately 34,000 Americans die as a result of driving; passengers, pedestrians, and drivers alike (“Scholarship”). This is more than the amount of Americans who died in Iraq and Afghanistan combined. This kind of loss is staggering, and the only way to change it is for all of us to truly understand and appreciate the risks we take every day we get behind the wheel.

It seems obvious that driver’s education would produce better drivers. In 2021, the National Institute of Health found that pre and post-license education improved performance and self-perceived driving abilities, as well as slightly decreased in traffic offenses across all age groups (Akbari). It has even more obvious effects on young drivers; who – without taking any driver’s education courses – are 75% more likely to get a ticket, 16% more likely to have an accident, and 24% more likely to be involved in a fatal accident (Newman and Duane). Simply put, driver’s education makes drivers less likely to make a mistake, but especially a fatal one. The math is clearly in favor of driver’s education, and so is common sense. What possible downside could there be to having drivers who know what they’re doing?

There are a multitude of ways to reduce the amount of deaths related to driving which can be accomplished on an individual and municipal level. One of those ways is to reduce individual driving altogether by building strong public transportation systems. People in transit-oriented communities have about 20% of the crash casualty rate of those in automobile-oriented communities. We can also encourage our city planners to design safer roads, with more speed bumps near residential areas and schools, roundabouts to reduce traffic at intersections, and narrowing them to make drivers more cautious and pedestrians more safe.

These measures have all proven to significantly decrease injury on the road (Luke and Sharpin).

Both of these previous methods involve civic participation and making sure your representatives know what your priorities are, but there are other things we can do at a more personal level. The main contribution you can make is to make a habit of driving defensively: driving with focus, caution, and obeying all signs and traffic laws (Law). Included in that habit are the standard reminders to never drive under the influence or with your phone turned on – both of which would obviously take away your vital focus and caution. Always encourage your loved ones to drive safely, even when they get tired of your reminders. Better to have an annoyed friend than a dead one. There are many things we can do to make our roads safer, both as an individual and a community.

My no-nonsense approach to driving makes more sense when taken in context. I was born in Los Angeles, rated the 10th worst-driving city out of the 2nd worst-driving state (Allyn). One of my clearest childhood memories is the screeching crash of a car being T-boned behind me as my mother drove us past an intersection. Being surrounded by risk and bad examples has only made my family more strict about responsibility in all respects, but especially behind the wheel. So no, I’ve never been so unlucky as to be directly involved in a car accident, and with the way I was raised, I will never intentionally be the cause of one.

As a person in the process of getting a driver’s license, I’ve been doing my best to learn and adhere to the rules of the road, but I’ve found that the most important thing is to stay as level-headed as possible. I’ve heard it said that you should never fight when you’re angry, since that will make you more reckless; and the same goes for driving. On the road, everyone is trying to get somewhere, and even if you’re having a bad time or in a hurry, there’s no reason to cut corners and potentially make someone else’s trip worse. If you get upset at another driver, don’t forget that you’re not just having a personal dispute with them, you’re disagreeing while operating thousand-pound hunks of metal moving at astonishing speed. It doesn’t take much for that to turn deadly. Do you value your time or emotional satisfaction over someone else’s life?

Driving a car is a lot of things: a status symbol, a rite of passage, an everyday necessity, and a potential source of tragedy, all in one. If we have any hope of changing the final part of that list, we have to be aware of the risks of driving and exercise all our education and common sense to mitigate them. It will be a gradual process, but together, we can make our roads safer for all of those who will travel on them.