CAUTION: UNSAFE ROADS AHEAD (A National Crisis)

As a relatively new driver, being on the road never feels completely safe. I spend a lot of time on the road every day, with a 20 minute commute to and from school that includes a few miles on the freeway. During these drives, I tend to clench my jaw for at least half the duration of the drive due to uncertainty of the responsibility and safety of everyone else on the road. Having proper drivers’ education and consistent enforcement of traffic laws can have a drastic positive impact on reducing the amount of fatalities from vehicular accidents.

The vast majority of deaths caused by irresponsible driving are due to negligence and a sense of untouchability. Drunk drivers refuse to realize the dangers of driving under the influence. Those who text and drive refuse to believe that they can cause a crash. People as a whole do not understand how sudden accidents can happen. A common error of human thought is a sense of detachment and immunity from misfortune. Bringing more awareness to the need for alertness when driving may help prevent vehicular accidents in the future. The more education that people have about the importance of safe driving, the more likely it will be for them to take responsibility and be more mindful when driving.

To reduce the amount of driving-related fatalities, there should be a required educational course about safe driving that must be passed in order to be issued a driver’s license. This course can be made convenient by using an online platform. The course should be concise and to the point, emphasizing the most important information. The program would have the best impact if it included testimonials of victims of irresponsible drivers. This would provide the learner with a deeper emotional understanding of how much worse someone’s life can be made if they are injured in a car accident. Seeing someone’s face and hearing about their personal life with their own voice will make a deeper connection to someone taking this course than simply reading words on a page.

Another solution would be to raise the amount of punishment for those who are caught driving irresponsibly. Whether this means higher fines or longer sentencing, it is imperative that people who do drive irresponsibly understand the consequences of their actions. If the punishment for being unsafe on the road is worse, then people will be even more deterred from being unsafe behind the wheel.

Hopefully the implementation of a drivers’ safety course will prevent people from ever being unsafe on the road. Worsening the punishment for unsafe drivers would hopefully prevent anyone from repeating such a terrible mistake.

When I was about four years old, I was involved in a car accident. I was in the car with my sister, who is two years older than me. My mother was driving when she suddenly was rear-ended. The person who rear-ended my mother was driving distracted by his phone when the accident occurred. Thankfully, none of us were injured. The experience was, however, very shocking and unsettling for me and my sister, both at a very young age.

I have also witnessed many instances of irresponsible driving at the hands of my own family members. It is very easy to become distracted when you see text messages and notifications popping up while driving. I have seen everyone in my immediate family pick up their phone while driving, and it is very easy to ignore the dangers of such actions. In this digital age, it is so commonplace to text and drive that nobody bats an eye to it anymore. Society seems to have forgotten the consequences of unsafe driving and the impacts that it may have on others’ lives.

I can be a safer driver by dedicating myself to having better deterrents and obstacles for using my phone while driving. It is a lot easier to drive with no distractions if I can not see or hear any notifications on my phone. It is as simple as putting my phone on ‘Do Not Disturb’ mode. There are also settings on most cell phones where it can send an automatic text message response if someone texts you while driving. This prevents the feeling of necessity to type a response to the person.

I can also encourage others to drive safely by asking them to put away their phone or turn it on “Do Not Disturb” when I am a passenger. Simply verbally communicating the urgency and dangers of irresponsible driving is often enough to get someone to think twice about their actions and the great impacts that they might have on other people.