Name: Lupita Cortez Rojas
From: Grand Prairie, Texas
Votes: 0
When I first started to learn how to drive my dad always told me,
“One missed stop or a second your eyes aren’t on the road could
lead to death, so be careful.” I never took his words as joke or an
over exaggeration. I too often see the roadside memorials that grieve
the early deaths many who left their house thinking they’d go out
and make the trip back home alive, but never did. The best way to
lower the number of those roadside memorials is to take driver
education classes because it teaches more than just the basic things
needed to pass the learners permit test; it teaches you that there
are consequences to unsafe driving and how fast an accident can
occur. With the guidance of an experienced, safe driver more new
drivers will develop safe driving habits that will decrease the
number of car accident deaths drastically.
There are two other ways to efficiently decrease the number of car
accident deaths apart from what I had previously mentioned. The first
way would be to inform drivers about drowsy driving. Many drivers
don’t realize that driving while fatigued is just as dangerous as
driving inebriated because the mind is trapped in a similar state of
disorientation. Currently there are only two states in the U.S. that
have drowsy driving laws which are New Jersey and Arkansas. If more
states implement drowsy driving laws then less people will risk
driving while they can barely keep their eyes open. The second way
would be to create harsher speeding penalties for people driving
10mph or 20mph over the speed limit. This would encourage drivers to
keep an eye on their speedometers and not go over the speed limits
set to keep everyone safe. There are many other ways to reduce the
number of deaths but these are just the ones I believed would be the
most effective.
However, making laws and informing drivers is not enough. Drivers
have to put individual effort into preventing these deaths and it
starts by not making reckless decisions. If your driving, turn your
phone off. If you are going to drink, don’t even think about
touching a car.
I have experienced being in a car accident before and it happened in
seconds. I was in my dad’s car sitting in the passenger’s seat
with him in the driver’s seat and my younger sister in the backseat
behind my dad. I was talking with my sister as he was driving passed
a side street with a stop when I suddenly felt something hit the car
on my side. It turned out to be a young woman who had been so
distracted with her phone that she had missed the stop and did not
see that there was a car in front of her. Luckily no one was hurt but
I believe that it served as a lesson to show what happens when you
drive recklessly.
