The Responsibility of Driving

Last year over 13.75 million new cars were bought in the United States. The US has over 233 million licensed drivers in our country. To help all of these new drivers acclimate to their new vehicles, driver safety education classes are a great source of information. These classes give drivers real life experience and knowledge that they can use everyday on the road. As a driver who never took an official education class, I can’t personally attest to the benefits I am sure that they provide. However, I think an overlooked aspect of unofficial driver education is simply riding in the car with a responsible and experienced driver. My parents and grandparents always made sure to point out techniques and give advice about how to handle dangerous situations while on the road. Living in Alaska, we have some hazardous road conditions in the winter. It was especially important for me to spend some time paying attention to how to handle a vehicle when the road has 3 inches of ice or 6 inches of snow on it for months on end. Every year on the first snow cars end up in the ditch. A small class instructing drivers how to proceed when conditions become more hazardous would be such beneficial additions to everyone, especially in places where those conditions are more common.

When it comes to reducing driver deaths, many things can be done. There are the obvious things like reducing speed and wearing seatbelts but there are also some more complicated technological solutions. The introduction of Artificial Intelligence programs into some traffic areas could help reduce congestion and accidents as well as make the road systems more efficient. I think that phone companies should be required to have some sort of feature that discourages use while driving. There are “car modes” now, but a lot of the use of those features are up to the user. I have an app on my phone that tracks my use while I drive, and no usage results in a decrease in my auto insurance. I think programs like that are great incentives to improve driver safety and help reduce fatalities on the roads.

I have never been in an accident, but I have heard stories from my family about them. That sentence was written about a week ago when I was working on my essay for this scholarship. This morning however, I witnessed my first real life accident. The person in front of me rear ended a car approaching a roundabout. Luckily I was going slowly enough to stop before I reached them. I thought it was a worthwhile idea to update and resubmit my essay considering the ironic timing of this event. I believe the person at fault for the accident today was on their phone while driving, which was almost certainly the cause. As for the stories told by my family, whenever my mother comes home after seeing an accident she reminds me of the time my aunt and cousin got into a wreck. Fortunately my cousin was wearing her seatbelt, but sadly my aunt was not. Thankfully she was able to recover, but just the description of her laying in the hospital is enough for me to take care when I turn on the engine of my vehicle. I’ve also seen my friends driving irresponsibly. We were all out together, and one girl in the car kept reaching up into the front seat where the driver to mess with her. As soon as we got out of the car, I pulled her aside and asked her not to do that anymore. She didn’t think it was a big deal, so I have distanced myself from situations where I have to be in the same car as her. It’s important to let the driver focus, especially when distractions inside the car can be so easy to avoid.

The first and most important step I and everyone can put effort into and take is to reduce our speed while driving. I am sure this is the most common answer but I believe it is the most common problem. Simply driving slower allows for more reaction time, more space between objects in front of a car, and less impact force if there happens to be an impact. Another step I think I can take is to be a more empathetic driver. Understanding that everyone has their own circumstances and sources of stress just like me will help me react more calmly. For the general population, this could drastically lower the number of road rage incidents. It would also help drivers think more about their movements before they act irrationally due to strong emotions like annoyance or anger. I think being an empathic driver not only makes me a safer driver, but has a positive effect on those around me. For example in my old school parking lot, there was a lot of congestion at the end of the day, and it came down to taking turns to keep the line out of the parking lot moving. It was especially bad at the beginning of the year when everyone was new and just trying to get out. Every single time I left that lot I made sure to let someone go in front of me or wait my turn instead of charging through. There were still some people who were working on being empathetic, but for the most part everyone learned to be patient and work together to get out even if it meant waiting another minute. As a school we were able to make each other better drivers simply by waiting our turns and being patient. It is a great responsibility to be the driver of a car. As my great-grandmother always said, it’s important to be careful when driving because drivers carry “precious cargo”. We often overlook the task of driving but must always remember that we carry our family and friends with us, and owe it to them to take care of them and others.