Cars: Friends and Foe

Cars and other automobiles are a contradictory invention; they are metal death traps that can move faster than any living being powered by combustion, but they are also extremely powerful tools for transportation and have united countries. Never before have people been able to cover such a distance in so little time all without breaking a sweat. But due to their dangerous nature it is of utmost importance that people are competent with working this heavy machinery. By educating people on how to drive safely you can greatly decrease the amount of death caused by vehicles. According to the Insurance Institute of Highway Safety, there has been a 2% decrease from 2018 in deaths related to car accidents. This is proof that we are getting better at educating the masses on driver safety. Some of the steps that I think have led to this decrease is the increased efficiency at teaching safe driving practices to drivers while they are young.

I work in a high school so I have a front row seat when it comes to seeing the future drivers of America and their practices. I can also say that the availability of drivers handbooks and the quality of drivers education classes have significantly increased. Not only that but the teachers themselves are better advocates for safe driving. I can count a few teachers, including myself, who end their day by telling students to “Make good choices and wear your seat belts!” The students usually roll their eyes and say that of course they will, but to me it is always important to remind them. When I was in my senior year of high school one of my friends was killed in a car accident driving to school. The other driver was under the influence and my friend was not wearing their seat belt. I can still remember the look on everyone’s face, including her mother, when the school told everyone what had happened to our classmate. I hope that I will never have to experience the death of someone so young over something so preventable again. One of the only good things to come out of that situation was it helped me make the decision to never drive under the influence and to always wear my seatbelt. To make sure that I was driving as defensively and safely as I could so that I would not become a statistic and so that I would not cause that pain to anyone else or their family.

Another step that I think would lead to safer roads would be to implement more ride share programs in conjunction with bars and other places where drinking is common. With the emergence of companies like UBer and Lyft, there are options for people who need to end the night but are too inebriated to get behind the wheel. Companies like these provide a resource for them so that they don’t have to rely on friends who themselves may or may not be sober or take a huge gamble and try to drive home themselves. There are also apps, such as the Breeze, that work as a breathalizer and will tell you how long it will take to “sober up” and provide the option to call an Uber or cab for you if you’re too drunk to legally drive. Another option to help prevent the danger of driving under the influence would be to help boost the use of public transport. While not all cities have late night transport, there are still all of the daylight hours that they are running. Even outside of the situation of drunk driving, by using public transport you are decreasing the amount of drivers on the road therefore decreasing the possibility of accidents.

One last recommendation that I would make to improve driver safety would be to improve drivers safety programs for people who have repeatedly violated driving laws. By implementing a system that works with these drivers and helps foster safe driving practices I think we would see a larger decrease in deaths related to car accidents. Theoretically these programs would have classes that drivers would take that educate them on defensive driving techniques and how to better assess one’s own driving capabilities. The program would then continue to check in on attendees to see how they are doing and if they are implementing the techniques they had learned.

As a driver myself, I am always trying to assess my own driving capability and try to identify where I can improve so I am as safe of a driver as I can be. I make sure to always use my blinkers and signal to other drivers my intentions so that they can respond accordingly. I make sure to stay up on maintenance of my car so that everything works the way it is supposed to and I am not dealing with mechanical failure while in the middle of driving. I also always make sure to follow the traffic laws and speed limits while taking road and weather conditions into consideration. It doesn’t matter if you are following the speed limit if there is sleet on the road and you are negotiating turns. Lastly I also always make sure to remind the people I am in the car with of safe driving protocols so that we are not a hazard to ourselves and others. At the end of the day, you cannot control other drivers and you cannot make their choices for them. You can only control yourself and make sure that you are making the best possible choices with the hand that you are delt.