Driving Safe While Saving Lives

We all know that every teenager’s most exciting day of their lives is knowing that they are capable of getting their driving licence and most excitingly a car. But it’s very important that having a huge opportunity to be able to drive is also a great responsibility. There have been approximately 37,000 deaths due to irresponsible driving each day and nearly 1.35 million each year. More than half of road accidents occur are caused by drunk driving, cyclists and motorcyclists. The economic and social impact of road crashes costs more than $380 million in direct medical costs. These accidents could’ve all been avoided by just following the rules of the law and driving safely, not only would you save your life you would also save others too!

Some steps to reduce the deaths is to practice your driving. As much as people don’t want to admit it, most of the cases are due because they don’t get enough practice. 12% of new drivers are involved in car crashes because they didn’t know what turn signal to use. Can you believe that?. Another way to reduce deaths is making sure that you’re in the right mindset to be able to drive. I know that the word “mindset” can be a harsh word to use but think about it. Lots of people like to think that with a little alcohol in their system wouldn’t put them in that much danger. That they don’t rethink what they’re going to do and that the alcohol wouldn’t get in the way and get in the car and drive off not knowing that they’re putting not only themselves but everyone around them as well. A final step that can be helpful to reduce deaths would be to put on your seatbelt, and you might be thinking “why is this being added to her list” because believe it or not most people don’t put their seatbelts on when going out driving. The main reason why people don’t wear their seatbelt is simply because they forget. Although lots of people forget not putting your seatbelt has a higher risk of dying. It has been proven that seat belts actually reduce the risk of death by 47% and serious injury by 50%. Seat belts save thousands of lives each year because seatbelts help protect all the passengers from being ejected to the front of the car and having serious injuries during a car crash.

I have been in 1 car accident. The first accident was when I was in 5th grade when this incident happened. I just got home from school and told my mom to drop me off at my aunt’s house to be able to go to Six Flags because they promised that they would let me go with my cousins if I got good grades. So when they dropped me off at my aunt’s house and my mom was fully trusting of taking good care of me. My mom, not knowing that she drinked a bit of alcohol before leaving me at her house, waved goodbye. We were 15 minutes into our road trip having fun with my cousins in the backseat when all of the sudden I saw my aunt closing her eyes slowly while driving. She manages to fall asleep and almost passes out when we drive off the road hitting a tree. I hit my head but thankfully nothing serious happened. My aunt called my mom and told her what had happened. The truth is that she was drunk and my mom was so mad but mostly she was disappointed in not only putting me in danger but other kids as well. She took all of us home while I saw my aunt had gotten taken away by police to be questioned. It’s been 8 years but I still remember it like it was just yesterday.

Some steps that I can take to be a better and safer driver on the road is to follow the speed limit signs, following those signs will keep you safe and making sure that you don’t get into an accident because I won’t be going to fast nor I would be going to slow, perfect enough where I can take control of my vehicle while driving. My other step is to always watch out for pedestrians and bikers, they could be crossing the roads or walking to the side. It is very important that you are fully aware of your surroundings. It only causes one bad turn that can cause an accident.