A Near-Fatal Wake-Up Call

As the streets filled with local fruit vendors in the early morning hours, the sidewalks of Ethiopia became impossible to maneuver through. I witnessed pedestrians struggling to remain on the sidewalk but eventually giving up and walking side by side with the large vehicles that filled the road. I glanced out the window of my dad’s car as he drove me to school and I could not help but notice how attentive he was. He never failed to check his mirror and anticipated the outcomes of every motion he would make as he knew that a faulty choice could be a matter of life and death.

Defensive driving is being highly conscious of your surroundings when you are behind the wheel. This knowledge is the kind you gain when you journey through a driver education course. The significance of these courses is evident. It teaches individuals that no matter how safe you think you are, driving is unpredictable especially when you aren’t being intentional with your decisions. I learned this the hard way as I got into a near-fatal accident near the end of my senior year of high school.

This story starts with my dad behind the wheel and me sitting comfortably in the passenger seat. My dad was driving the speed limit and came to a slow and steady stop at an intersection as he noticed the green light turning yellow. His car was situated at a perfect distance that did not go past or come too close to the crosswalk. The car was also perfectly in between the lanes as if he had meticulously placed it there. Then, disaster unfolded. A small postal services car was smoking heavily and was driving at the other side of the intersection parallel to where my dad was situated. The driver, instead of pulling over, continued to drive which scared the other drivers in the lanes next to my dad and the cars driving at the intersection perpendicular to where we were. In a split second, the rear end of a car was resting on top of my dads’. Miraculously, the car piled on top of the very tip of our car and there were no fatalities or major injuries. As I got out of the car I looked at where my dad’s car was, if he had not stopped the car slowly and had moved even a couple of inches closer to the crosswalk, the car would have landed way further up and would have likely ended in fatalities.

The truth is, there is always going to be a risk when driving. Luckily, the safety of you, your vehicle, and those around you can be controlled with your ability to be observant and defensive. The primary advice I give to anyone driving is to be more aware and focus your mind on driving. Occupying yourself with other things can be dangerous even if it is looking down for one second. There are factors outside of your control that you may not anticipate but being alert will help you to react faster and can save your life and those around you. Secondly, it is also vital to follow the regulations set in place. They are there for a purpose. The five to ten minutes of commute time you think you are saving by going way past the speed limit can be a decision that costs you your life. Five minutes is not worth your or anybody else’s life.

The one thing I wish people had emphasized to me when I first started driving is to not get insecure at people speeding past me. If you are following the speed limit and are aware of your surroundings, it is much better to maintain a relaxed but alert manner than try and catch up to people who are recklessly driving. Speeding can also force you to lose control of your vehicle if you are forced to come to an abrupt stop and living in Colorado, I am all too familiar with those. In icy conditions, the brakes are much harder to operate, and breaking on short notice will not always work as your car will begin to slide down the slush as you are forced to just observe. Luckily for me, the lessons I learned helped me to keep a steady pace, especially in the snow. I have unfortunately witnessed many accidents unfold in front of me with people driving recklessly in icy conditions. Understanding most of them could have been prevented by not speeding is vital to developing proper skills that will help you to become a safer driver.

Ultimately, my final points are as follows: follow traffic rules and be observant. This can help to reduce the fatalities caused by motor vehicle accidents.