Safe Drivng Saves Lives

Imagine, you’re a teenager, driving, going the speed limit, to a friend’s house. You and your friend hangout with two other friends and you all decide to go to the movies. You are the driver of the car, everything is going pretty well. Your friends are laughing, you all are singing to a song on the radio, you stop paying attention to the road for just one minute. Within that one minute, you swerve off your side of the road and hit a car in the other lane. The driver and the passengers in the other car, suffers from several injuries, as you and two of your friends, but one of your friends, your best friend, dies. This has been a reality to some people, or it has been something similar. Whether it is caused by being distracted, or something else, the effects of car crashes affect the guilty party all the same. Depending on how serious the crash or accident was, the charges can vary, but what remains the same is that it is a mark on your record.

In the United States, there are about 19,937 car crashes a day, and roughly 188 of those crashes cause fatalities. It’s pretty bad if the number of car crashes per day is a couple thousand less than the amount of casualties in the American Revolutionary War. There are various causes of these crashes, such as; driving under the influence, texting while driving, distracted driving, driving when you’re tired, speeding, over correction, reckless driving, etc. The list goes on with different causes of car accidents, and some of the causes are illegal. Not every accident is caused by a car crashing into another car, there can be accidents caused by any vehicle, or a person getting hit by a car. They can all be caused by the same causes that are listed above. Young drivers need to be aware of the causes of car accidents and need to also know the consequences of them as well. The charges for car accidents, in New York State at least, are counted as Vehicular Assault which is a class E felony. This is a maximum 4 year prison sentence and fine between $1,000 and $5,000, not to mention probation afterwards. And that’s not counting if you kill someone, because that is Vehicular Manslaughter and that’s a class C felony in New York State, which goes up to 15 years in prison and a fine as well. Plus any minor charges like a DWI or a DUI, which are both fines that you have to pay. No one wants that to be on their permanent record because that will affect your life in a huge way.

This is not just limited to young drivers, everyone needs to know this. Sure, some people get a speeding ticket once in a while and that’s not the best but it isn’t horrible. When you drive in a way that could not only jeopardize your life, but the lives of others who are driving near you or who are on the sides of the road or crosswalks. So promoting awareness for safe driving can help prevent car accidents from happening. And Driver’s Ed can help teach that to soon-to-be drivers.

As a person who has taken Driver’s Ed over the summer of 2023, I learned about safe driving and what can happen if you don’t pay attention to the road or are driving impaired. One of the driving practices that we had was driving impaired and driving distracted. The person who was driving the group’s car first had to drive the van with “drunk glasses” that the instructor got from my school’s health teacher. I remember that this was a bit difficult because you had to wear the goggles and drive through cones, I hit a cone. Then, the Driver’s Ed instructor had one of the other students in the car text the driver, this was a distracted driving simulation. We never did any of this on the road, we did it at the school’s parking lot. This helped shape my opinion that Driver’s Education can help prevent accidents and help influence driver safety.

Less than 2.1% of car crashes are caused by drivers who have taken Driver’s Ed. So people need to learn how to drive safely, and not jeopardize their lives or others lives. If they have the proper knowledge to drive safely, it will decrease the amount of crashes a day in the United States. This is why the implication of driving programs or classes, and the enforcement of traffic laws could help teach people to drive safely. Plus, driving programs and classes can also change to fit the changing traffic laws as well. Many people need to know that smart driving saves lives.