The Small Overlooked Dangers of Driving

My parents have always been very protective of me, and when I got my license, the extents they went through to ensure my safety only increased. They wouldn’t let me drive other people, they wouldn’t let me drive on the highway, and they wouldn’t let me drive at night. As a naive teen, I craved freedom, and I thought they were overreacting. However, now, I see the realities of the world, and I understand my parents. My brother crashed his car during a storm, and my parents were in a hit and run. Driving on the road can be scary, and car crashes can happen.

I refuse to call car crashes “accidents” because I believe many of them are preventable. In the U.S., an average of 34,000 people die every year due to car crashes, but if all drivers were educated about driver safety and distracted driving, this number would diminish. Most people are aware that driving under the influence and texting while driving are dangerous, but not many people know that eating, applying makeup, and even looking at objects outside of the vehicle are also forms of distracted driving. If more people knew about the small overlooked dangers, more lives could be saved.

To educate drivers, a reasonable method could be to have state departments require annual driver safety training. This could simply be done by reviewing a booklet every year and having drivers complete and submit a short safety quiz. Another method to reduce the number of deaths related to driving could be to spread awareness to people about the dangers of having objects in the front seat. This could be done through PSAs, social media, and reminding all your loved ones to keep objects in the back seat. Personally, to become a better and safer driver, I plan to follow all road rules, drive cautiously in bad weather, and put all my possible distractions in the back seat.

Being able to drive is a blessing, but it is also a safety hazard, and all drivers should go to the fullest extent to ensure the safety of themselves and others. My parents always tell me that if anything ever happened to me, they would lose their whole world. I couldn’t imagine losing someone I love, and I wouldn’t want to put the people I love through that pain either. As a society, we should educate ourselves on the dangers of driving, and take action to save more lives.