Driving Smarter is Driving Safer

I read a statistic that the most common mistake for accidents behind the wheel is due to human error. This includes distracted driving, drunk driving, speeding, running red lights and stop signs, aggressive driving and driving while fatigued. I read another statistic that most accidents occur with new drivers is within the first six months of obtaining their drivers’ license. This tells me that driver’s education needs to be absolutely important in educating people on how to be responsible and safe before they get behind the wheel. The more you know—the more you understand about driving defensively—the better chances you have for not getting into a serious accident.

According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, last year in 2023, approximately 43,000 people died from car accidents. This number doesn’t even count injuries of people who survived. This number is higher than some wars around the world! Therefore, the importance of driver’s education is thee most important thing you can do to help yourself become a safer driver—especially if you’re a new driver. In addition, every year there are new state laws that we need to be aware of as licensed drivers. It’s apparent that driving defensively—which educates us on driving safer is a continuous process throughout our entire lifetime, not just for new drivers.

I believe certain steps CAN be taken to reduce the number of deaths related to driving. First of all, if you can manage it: 1. Drive only during the day time. Many drivers cannot see in darkness where there is poor lighting and distance is harder to judge when you can’t measure things by sight. Automatically, the risk for having an accident increases exponentially. 2. Never go over the speed limit if you don’t have to. My father said he implemented this simple rule when he was young and all of a sudden, his tickets stopped! Better to be at your destination in one piece instead of never arriving at all. Dad says, you only have to die once or be crippled permanently to give up your driver’s license forever. 3. Give plenty of space between you and other cars—this allows for compensation time if you have to make emergency evasive maneuvers and chances are you will have to do that if you drive any inordinate amount of time. Finally, 4. Patience: Do not be in a hurry wherever you go. This is a way of driving defensively and if other people are driving aggressively, let them take the chances of driving foolishly as this simple tactic helps avoid us for getting caught up in another person’s collisions.

As you have probably guessed—I received these four simple steps from my father. He is super protective of me as I am a teen driver myself and he has seen bad accidents first hand—many of them fatal. He has told me some of them in descriptive form and in horrific detail. If that wasn’t enough to scare me into defensive driving, he showed me pictures on the internet of foolish people not following safe measures and the rules of the road; their bodies were mangled in a bad way! My family or friends don’t intentionally drive breaking traffic laws but I think the one most important thing people my age can do is simple: Don’t drive distracted.

For example, it seems like after a football game when the radio is on loud and we’re all laughing and talking that we aren’t really paying attention, we’re all pumped up from playing in a game—this is distracted driving. I’m not entirely sure, but I think the athletes really need to take it down a few notches from all the adrenaline we experience. Several times already we have almost gone through a stop sign or turned the wrong way on a “One Way” street because of not paying attention. We need to turn down the radio, straighten up and calm down. We all thought what could have happened and it scared the Heebie Jeebies out of us! It really did. We thought e-bikes were kinda dangerous but like an officer told us at school once “we’re driving a motor vehicle that weighs over a thousand pounds—it’s deadly when used improperly no different than a boat or airplane.” I think the best way to get the word out is to have people who have experienced bad car accidents speak to high school students. If we meet someone and talk to them face-to-face in front of us then the consequences just seem the more real and not just another lecture at school. This idea came to me when I heard my dentist talk about his brother Chad who died in a terrible car accident at a young age. He said it just never had to happen. Precautions of driving defensively could have avoided the whole catastrophe in his family. He didn’t go into detail—but when he spoke, I really was riveted to his words. It made me think about being a better driver and my dad said he knew Chad as a teen growing up. After that, my dad was quiet for a long time, then drove us home slowly and we got ready for bed. I said a prayer for Mr. Chad and went to sleep.