Safety in Education

The excitement to receive your license and be out of the road is like no other. Many teens count down the days to spend some time away from their parents, travel places by themselves, and simply, be able to drive around with their friends as a form of entertainment. Although this is one of the most exciting times in a teenager’s life, it also comes with the biggest risk to their life. Teenagers take the required classes, get some hours of practice in, and once they get the slip of paper clearing them for life on the road, they often gamble with the idea of distracted driving. Although they may not think their best friend in the passenger seat, the blasting music, or their maps open on their phone is a form of distraction, these ideas (just to name a few), could result in fatal accidents. 

Having my license now for four years and being a passenger in a car for my whole life, I am very blessed to say I have never been in an accident. Although this is true, I can also name several family, friends, and acquaintances who have not had the same luck as me, whether minor or life-changing. Sadly enough, when discussing this topic with others around me, there wasn’t a single person who didn’t have a close family member or friend in a driving accident. Although all of them may not have been considered to be caused by distracted driving, it is very plausible that this reasoning was the case. Having a father who worked at a collision center for most of his life, I had the unique opportunity to see severely damaged vehicles and hear stories of people in our community who have faced the consequences of distracted driving. Even though none of those images or stories were used specifically as a scare tactic to prevent me from ever driving distracted, they worked much better than any fact or statistic we had to read in driver’s education. 

Because a vast number of the driving population may not have the opportunity to see the first-hand result of an accident, hands-on education must be implemented into the driver’s curriculum. With high numbers of violent media displays in everyday life, it is not strange to see people who feel desensitized to crashes or unsettling accidents. Videos and pictures in the curriculum are essential, however, I believe many students would feel a stronger emotional connection if they were able to view the consequences in-person, such as a totaled car, as an effort to improve their conscious recall of what happens with unsafe driving.

It’s important to address the fact that although young drivers have less experience on the road, making them more at risk of an accident, it is also the case that older individuals will make the excuse that their years of experience make it okay to participate in any form of distracted driving. Older individuals may have dealt with more difficult or a wide variety of driving predicaments, however, no situation is the same as the next. Accidents can happen to anyone at any time, no matter your level of experience. This leads me to believe that every couple of years, even if it ranges from ten to thirty minutes, all drivers should be required to watch a short training video on the dangers of distracted driving. Most individuals may think they know the dangers; however, the true goal of this objective is to present this information repeatedly so it’s always fresh in everyone’s minds. You may think you are a safe and experienced driver, however, when you are out on the road the lives of many individuals must be considered. Changing people’s mindset of what distracted driving is and simply their connections to those distractions (such as phones) will significantly impact the number of accidents we experience as a society. 

To address the elephant in the room, cell phone usage is most people’s immediate thought when hearing distracted driving. One of the most beneficial apps I have stumbled upon to prevent cell phone usage while driving is “Drivemode Dash.” This application works to silence calls, texts, or alerts when someone is driving over 15 miles per hour and can reply automatically. When comparing technology aimed at reducing cell phone usage, I immediately look for these qualities, as most people need to know what’s happening right when they receive a message and how long it takes them to reply to let others know they have seen the message. Several downloadable applications follow similar guidelines which all drivers should be aware of when taking a driver’s education class and “renewing” their distracted driving class as I suggested above. Although this largely depends on the involvement of phone companies, I believe some of these apps should be automatically installed on people’s phones as an additional precaution and to increase overall awareness of these safety applications. 

To encourage smarter decisions on the road, driving education needs to be a continuous process. With an evolving world of technology, drivers must be aware of the risks they put themselves and others in every time they reach for their phones. To reduce a culture of normative phone usage while driving, applications promoting safe driving need to be used every day along with society making a conscious effort to change our mindset on a very dangerous habit.