Driving Safely

Safe driving in America is something every new driver is taught in driving school, yet people who begin to drive after passing the driving tests and classes still manage to get into accidents and fail to uphold the law when driving. The reason for this is a lack of mindfulness and a comfort beginning to form when joining the road. People drive every day in America for a number of reasons and with continued use of any item, they begin to become comfortable and less wary.

Drivers’ education is only required as a course in 37 states and as such does not mandate every driver to learn specific items about road safety and other skills before getting on the road. Mississippi for example has only just signed into law mandating the driver education course for new drivers and the state has been home to the highest number of fatal car accidents per 100,000. The state has the lowest seatbelt usage in the country and their drivers have admitted to spending 8% of their driving time on their phones. Although this is a problem, it does not account for the states with the most vehicle accidents overall like Texas, Florida, and California where driver’s education is required. The high rate of wrecks in the aforementioned states can mostly be attributed to high traffic, especially around cities. What this means is that in places with driver education, the mass influx of tourists, city residents, or other though traffic in these states is where drivers are becoming too comfortable and thus leading to high accident rates. The high fatality rate in Mississippi, however, can be more attributable to the lack of driver education and risk taking that occurs behind the wheel in their state. Some solutions are, the institution of mandatory driver ed, the awareness of drivers to understand defensive driving and never to be comfortable with others driving around you, and finally reducing distracted driving which has been a prevalent problem since the invention of the car phone in 1983.

In my lifetime, I have been in two accidents involving another driver, only one caused by a blowout thankfully. I was a self-victim of the comfort while driving point already made earlier in this essay, where I got comfortable while driving in the rain while listening to music in earbuds. I started daydreaming while driving and of course, rear ended the driver in front of me after a slide stop in the rain. This accident would be only a couple of months after getting my license, so I was definitely a statistic. Only a month or so later I managed to get into a double collision with the driver in front of me and another driver in the left lane to me. I attempted to swerve to avoid a collision after the truck in front of me decided to slam on brakes in almost bumper-to-bumper traffic, to which I swerved into the seemingly empty left lane where my driver’s side was slammed by a gentleman speeding in the lane. It was not a very fortunate accident for me and once again it is a chance for me to add to the new driver accident statistics. Since then, I’ve taken strides to do better in my driving and take my experiences and apply them to a safe driving future.

The steps I’ve taken to improve my driving have been to keep in mind my surroundings and not rely on others to follow safe driving expectations. I’ve also worked to manage my distractions and how I drive around others, where I have taken to make sure to keep my speeds legal, where cruise control might be the best invention for helping anyone do that. Also being mindful of others, trying to make moves on the road, and being safe and heeding to them when appropriate has helped with making sure there are no dodgy situations while I’m driving.

Overall, the issue of safe driving and the importance of driver’s ed are some of the most important topics in America today. With the constant growth and need for vehicles in everyday life, the need for driver education is growing to be more and more important every year to help manage the amount of fatalities on the roads. The mindfulness of others on the road, not being distracted, and making sure to pay attention to the road and the constant changes through lessons like scanning the road could drastically decrease the number of road accidents seen around the U.S. today.