The Silent but Avoidable Killer

6,000,000 and 38,000. 6 million car crashes occur each year and thirty eight thousands deaths due to car crashes each year in the U.S. This is clearly a problem, and one that can be worked on with something as simple as drivers education and teaching people the consequences of driving unsafely. Not only does driver education teach you to be the best driver possible but it also teaches how to be safe and that could go a long way in reducing the number of car crashes and deaths in the U.S.

In addition to driver education and informing people of the risks of driving unsafely, we can also ensure to look at this issue from various standpoints. First, is an engineering standpoint and we can do this in two ways. Our country should make self driving cars, which reduce risks of crashes, more accessible, meaning increasing the actual supply and decreasing costs. But in addition, we should also work to make better air bags as these would reduce the number of deaths that come due to a car crash. Second, we can look at it through a governmental standpoint. A policy change we can look at in addition to education and engineering is to make the penalties against texting and driving and drinking and driving even harsher so it will make more people less likely to do it.

We can see people driving irresponsibly everywhere in our daily lives. People like our friends, family members, and other drivers on the road. I personally know that my friends sometimes drive irresponsibly especially when other people are in the car with them, and they do occasionally text and drive. While we might think this is harmless, this can actually be the cause of an accident endangering not only my friends life, but other people’s on the road as well.

Personally, I do believe that I am a fairly safe driver right now, but there are definitely ways I can improve. One change would be to actually turn my phone on the do not disturb mode, because while I do not text while driving the ding of the notification does make me curious and distracted. Another thing I could do is ensure I always check my mirrors and seats are correctly positioned before starting to drive, since they change sometimes due to me sharing a car. This way I will not have to worry about it when I am actually driving. To help others make progress and drive safely, I can ensure to let them know about the dangers of what they are doing wrong when I see someone not driving safely. Additionally, since I am in my Student Government and have access, I can start a drive safe campaign week where we teach the students about safe driving.

Driving is a dangerous activity that leads to many accidents and thousands of lives lost. But there are also ways to reduce this number severely. There is drivers education, campaigns to spread awareness about the dangers of driving and the benefits of safe driving, engineering aspects, simply turning off our phones, and many more. So, if we all do our parts in safely driving and spreading awareness to have other people drive safely, we can truly change things for the better.