The Fight For Stricter Road Laws

Once when I was in the 5th grade my grandmother was driving us home from the grocery store. She had gotten a text from our mother asking if we were on our way home yet. She took her hands and eyes off of the road and started to reply. We started veering off the road within seconds. We were barely able to swerve back in time before we hit the wall because of the rumble strips. Safe driving is super important for the safety of yourself and other roads. Being an informed driver can decrease your risk of a crash by a significant amount. This is why more people should be taking a drivers education course before getting their permit. Keeping everyone around you safe on the road by following all traffic laws and being alert is one of the most important things to do when you step into your car.

One of the ways to become informed on the laws of the road is by taking a BMV-approved driver education course. A study was done in 2015 by the University of Nebraska where they followed the driving records of about 151,800 new drivers. It was found that 36,000 of the young drivers were involved in a fatal or injury-causing crash. (Reed) This just goes to show that even taking the time to get information into your mind can greatly reduce the risk of getting into a fatal crash. If you simply rely on the information given to you by your family and friends, it could lead to a serious problem. They could be giving you inaccurate information or information that is not up to date. Whether this is intentional or not, they could be telling you to do something that is against the law. This can cause you to be predicting unsafe driving habits and could lead to a crash. They could also be skipping over some laws altogether. This can lead to you driving recklessly. They could even be driving recklessly. I have witnessed family and friends not following traffic laws. I had a friend who got into a car crash that caused him to have a concussion. This crash happened because he was not paying attention to the road and pulled out before checking both ways and got into an accident. This could have all been avoided if he had followed traffic laws by looking both ways and allowing the other car with the right of way to go first. My mother also can drive irresponsibly. I have seen her veer off the road while texting on her phone. We have almost hit other cars or gone off the road because of her not paying attention to the road or following traffic laws. If they had taken a drivers education class they could have known what consequences and effects driving like this could have on themselves and others.

There are some things that we could do to keep the roads a little safe. To reduce deaths we should make the fines and mandatory punishments, such as jail time, more severe. If we were to make the consequences more severe, people would display those irresponsible behaviors less and less. We should stop giving people warnings and immediately give them a ticket, even if it is their first offense. It may be annoying to get a ticket if you were only speeding a little or just glanced at your phone, but if we don’t let little things like that slide people will be less likely to do things such as speed, run red lights, or look at their phone. I think that we should also raise the fine that people have to pay if they violate the law. If we make people pay more for breaking the law, people will not do it as much because people do not want to have to pay money they could use elsewhere. People are more likely to stop doing something that costs them money that they may need for other things. I would also say that people who have been caught violating the law and driving irresponsibly 3 or more times should be required to take a 30-hour, BMV-approved course to be able to drive again. If people are made to do something that they don’t want to do because of their actions, they don’t want to repeat the actions that caused them to take the course because they believe that it was a waste of time. An article states that the risk of conviction due to traffic violations goes down by 40% when you take driver’s ed. A course after many violations can help. One step that I can take to be a better driver is to make sure I am aware of the driving laws in my area. The more I know about their laws the less likely I am to break them. I can also make sure I put my phone somewhere out of reach and on silent, this way I don’t get distracted by it and make reckless decisions. Another thing that I could do is make sure I am confronting people when they are doing something reckless. Whether this is being on their phone or speeding. I should make sure they are aware of it so they can change their behaviors. I should also not engage in dangerous behavior. If others are speeding that does not mean I should also be speeding. I should not be doing reckless things just because others are.

Safe driving is super important. We should not be engaging in reckless driving because it can increase our risk of getting hurt. Drivers Education is a great resource to inform everyone of basic safety laws in your state and country. It reduces reckless driving because people become more aware of laws that most people are not aware of. Even if you think that you are a good driver you can still learn from drivers education. Overall we all need to be doing more to keep each other safe. We all need to be more careful and aware of what we are doing on the road and take steps to make sure we are all following traffic laws.