Driving Safely is Paramount to Driving

Did you know that in the US 37 people die every day? That is someone’s life being vanished from this world every 39 minutes. To put it into perspective, that is one of your entire class, including yourself and the teacher, dying. One entire class just gone. The reason why is because of recklessness and people being oblivious and selfish. The imminent danger that puts yourself and others in danger is why safety while driving is paramount to driving in general.

First and foremost the most obvious reason as to why driving safely is paramount to driving, is because of the danger it brings to not only yourself and any passengers in your vehicle, but also the surrounding people and property. By choosing to drive unsafely there is always a high chance and risk that someone can sustain a, if not lethal, serious injury. Now, some people may say that that kind of risk would come with driving in general, even if following rules and driving safely. That is true that stepping into a 2000 pound machine that can go 65 miles per hour is incredibly dangerous and can be volatile. But, if we all take proper safety measures, follow the rules, and be safe then the chances of those life threatening injuries will be very low if not zero. Of course this idea all relies, not necessarily all on you, but your fellow drivers on the road. A lot of what driving is, is having faith not only in yourself, but other people. For example, someone could have a green light going straight, therefore it is their right of way, but then someone, who has a red light runs the red light T-boning the person who has the right of way. Assuming the speed limit is 40 the person with a green light if lucky enough to not sustain a life ending injury, will certainly have their whole life uprooted due to new costs and any new issues brought up. To give an anecdote, a childhood friend was sitting in the back of their moms car waiting at a red light at a usually safe intersection. The light turns green and Camila’s mom begins to go straight through the intersection as a gray Nissan runs through a redlight, going 40 miles per hour piercing the side of Camilla’s car. The reason why this Nissan decided to do this is unclear. Maybe they were late for an important meeting or something. But as is more likely, due to the driver being almost in mint condition, probably was drunk. The saddest part of this whole ordeal was that Camila, completely innocent-she was only 8 years old-passed away in the hospital only 2 hours after the crash. This is why driving safely and with respect is mandatory to driving. It is not only the danger you put yourself with driving unsafe, but more the danger you put on completely innocent humans, who have absolutely no way to do anything about their circumstance. This poor innocent life, who didn’t have any time to even learn what the capital is of the state of California, is stripped because of someone else’s poor decisions. These poor decisions can spawn from a whole host of problems. Sometimes it comes from people’s innate selfishness and being impatient and making poor decisions because they see only themselves. There is a thing such as going too slow as realistically there is a point where it is unnecessary to go so slow because it breeds people into taking drastic measures to try and get in front of you like crossing over double yellow lines onto incoming traffic and overtaking you. Even though they were the ones who did those dangerous actions, ultimately if the person going slow followed the speed limit and was predictable, ideally that combo would cause people to calm down. Of course this all relies on an almost social contract for everyone to follow the rules and as we all know people tend to break because of bad decision making skills. One huge rule break is drinking while driving. This is perhaps one of the most un-intelligent moves ever as driving already takes situation awareness and complete focus, so why try to challenge this by driving under the influence of alcohol. It impairs everything. It causes judgment to be thrown out the window and as before mentioned the one who usually pays the biggest price is the completely innocent one as when drunk your body is relaxed and not as tensed up making you safer and increasing survivability. It is unfortunate that many people cannot grasp the concept that actions all have consequences be it for yourself or other people. To conclude, the reason we should all follow safety rules and drive safely is because of the danger it brings not only yourself but because of how it affects the innocent who had no say in your poor choices.