One Life

One Life

One life is all we get in this world. 79 years to live our lives to the fullest, but all that could be stripped away in a matter of seconds. Driving is one of the most dangerous things that we commonly do. We drive to work, school and home without thinking of the risk we are putting ourselves in. But if it’s so dangerous, why do we do it? The answer to that is simple, driving has become a necessity in our era of humanity. When I drive to work it takes me about 20 to 25 minutes but if I were to walk it would take more than an hour. Having to do this every day would be such an inconvenience to not only me but my employer as well. Because of the fact that driving has become essential, it is important to try and minimize the possible dangers that we pose to ourselves and others while on the road. Driving is dangerous, yes but in reality it is ourselves who make it that dangerous. The thousands of deaths we see every year in driving accidents are the cause of being distracted while on the road and ignorant drivers.

By ignorant I don’t mean unintelligent I mean people who get behind the wheel before fully knowing the rules of the road. We have all been ignorant drivers at one point that is why we take drivers ed courses to learn the rules of the road before we can even take a driving test. This is seemingly a good way to ensure drivers learn the rules of the road, but I was surprised to learn that drivers ed is only a one day class. After learning this I thought to myself, what could I possibly learn in one day? The answer is not much. There are so many rules we must learn before we should even think about driving on the road. I believe we should put more emphasis on learning the rules of the road rather than learning how to drive. An all way stop is a great example. A lot of people when confronted by an all way stop don’t know what to do and that is something you should know before getting on the road because not knowing what to do leads to panic and panic is the biggest killer of the human race. Educated drivers know what to do when they are confronted by an obstacle on the road so they drive without nerves and if everyone were to drive like this it would drop the amount of driving deaths per year tremendously.

Many things contribute to car wrecks such as speeding, drunk driving and even nature but one of the biggest causes is distracted driving. Distracted driving is one of the most dangerous things you can do and can put yourself and those around you in danger. The biggest distraction we encounter while driving is our cell phone. We have all been in the situation where our teacher stops lecture early to show us a PSA (public service announcement) video about texting and driving. It happens every year and there is a good reason for this. It is to spread awareness because just knowing how dangerous texting and driving is, is not enough to stop some people from actually doing it. Distractions while driving are a big thing because once you lose focus on the road you become a hazard to the people driving around you. Because our cell phone is such a big distraction we should learn to turn off our phones while driving in order to prevent the temptation that a ringing cell phone omits. Doing this diminishes distractions around us and allows us to focus on the road ahead. An extra step we can take is after turning off our phones we can throw them to the back seat so we don’t even look at them because when driving, taking your eyes off the road for a second can lead to a fatal accident.

The odds of you dying in a car accident in the United States are 1 in 93. That is why driving is no joke and should not be taken lightly. Everytime we drive we put our lives at risk and everytime we drive unintelligently we put the lives of everyone around us at risk. Taking safety measures while driving is not out of paranoia, it’s out of the concern of your life and those around you because at the end of the day we all want to go home to our families alive.