How and When to Drive

Driving, although a useful tool and something many of us enjoy, is quite dangerous. This is not to say that you shouldn’t drive, but you should be smart about how and when you do drive. Roughly 20,000 crashes occur every day in the United States. Although that may not seem like alot this totals to more than 7.25 million crashes in the United States every year. That’s just over 2% of Americans crashing their car on a yearly basis. Over the past 10 years, we have seen enormous leaps in automobile safety features, however there are more fatal car crashes than ever. According to the U.S. Department of Transportation, roadway fatalities per mile driven increased more than 20% from 2019 to 2020. As driving is such an integral part of all of our lives and the function of our society as a whole, I believe it is our duty to educate drivers better. Despite my search I couldn’t find any sound data from reputable sources on what percentage of crashes were caused by various things. However, between all organizations, distracted and drunk driving have been two of the leading causes, both seemingly increasing in number during recent years. According to the CDC 2.5% of Massachusetts residents report driving after drinking “too much”. According to Forbes magazine’s independent study, in 2019 19% of drivers admitted to having texted or emailed while driving, but in 2020 that percentage is almost 27%. We know these driving habits are bad yet we still do them anyway. Even I have to remind myself if my phone buzzes not to check it. So what can we do to reduce the number of driving fatalities? According to a recent study done by the Department of Health and Human Services, the best things we can do are increase seatbelt use, decrease drunk driving, and protect pedestrians. How do we do that? EDUCATION. Driver education has been shown to significantly reduce the risk of drivers getting into serious accidents, by reducing their risk or driving drunk or distracted. But this education isn’t just for drivers, it’s for kids too. Studies by the CDC have shown that education of young people on driving early on can impact their willingness to get into a car with someone who is intoxicated and increase their seatbelt usage. Although there are many other solutions out there to the driving fatality issue such as breathalyzer locking cars, having sobriety checkpoints on specific roads, and forcing tech companies to put driving locks on mobile devices, many of these solutions are not feasible. Driver education on the other hand is already a part of our lives and by increasing funding for driver education we can hopefully decrease the overall number of driving fatalities through distributing important safe driving information. As someone who currently attends highschool I have seen many of my peers make bad decisions about how and when to drive, but the experience that influenced me most when it comes to driving is one I had last summer. I was with friends driving back to the camp I work at, after eating dinner. It was only about 7:00 pm on a Wednesday night when a red suv came into view. At this point the suv had already flipped and was skidding across the road upside down. We saw the car skid to a stop, bits and pieces of glass and metal being thrown across the road. As boy scouts we all jumped into action, I called 911 and gave the dispatcher updates, while the two of us who were trained EMTs made sure the driver was okay. After shutting off the car (as it was leaking fuel all over the road) my friends were able to get her to nod her head that she was okay, but did not remove her from the seat in case of any spinal injury. When on duty emergency services arrived, the woman couldn’t even remember her name. The spectacular nature of this crash was a result of her obvious impairment. This particular experience has stuck with me and resulted in me continuing to make smart decisions on how and when to drive. This experience has led to me often encouraging others to participate in safe driving habits. I let my friends know that they should call me if they ever need a ride home from a party or whatnot and try my best to discourage them from driving while under the influence. Although I view myself as a pretty safe driver, there’s always room for improvement. I often mess with the radio while driving which is a distraction and something that I will try to do less of moving forward. As a whole we have a long way to go in terms of reducing the number of driving fatalities, but increased funding for education around safe driving is a great step in the right direction, enabling both young and old drivers to make good choices on how and when to drive.