The Importance of Safe Driving

Intro

Driving is an integral part of many lives, as it provides quick and reliable transportation from point A to B. Driving however, is the most dangerous mode of transportation, meaning proper driving education is the pinnacle of making it as safe as possible. Many driver’s accidents aren’t always caused by you, the driver, but by the mistakes of others. Educating everyone on how to be a better and more safe driver is the best way to enhance driver safety for all.

Why Driver Safety is Important

We’ve all seen them, especially here in Phoenix. Phoenix ranks 10th in the US for the highest number of deadly crashes. Speaking from experience, it’s a daily thing to see people going 15-25 miles over the speed limit. I see people tailgate or cut up in traffic and overall drive incredibly aggressively. The only way we seem to control it, is through using police officers who wait in hidden areas to catch people speeding. Otherwise, it seems to be a free-for-all. We can educate all drivers to be more safe, drive at the speed limit, use turn signals, slow down at yellows, etc. Driving safety also entails using seatbelts and staying off your phone. All of which can end in fatal accidents when people aren’t paying attention.

Personal Stories

I have personally heard many stories, and have been in car incidents. My grandma is notorious for being a relatively poor driver. My mom tells me so many stories of her getting in accidents. One in particular involved her little brother who was 8 years old at the time. My grandma was driving on the bridge when she ended up hitting the side rail, flipping her entire vehicle over. This story was so bad when I heard about it, fortunately she is fine and so is her son. She has probably been in over 5 accidents already. I believe this is because she grew up in a time when driver education wasn’t very prominent or cared about. I’ve also had an experience when I was younger when someone didn’t know how to operate their vehicle. This is another overlooked aspect of driving, but knowing how to operate your own vehicle is important in keeping you, your vehicle, and others safe. In this incident, the person never disengaged their parking brake. We drove about 8 miles with it on until eventually the heat from the brakes caused a fire to start underneath the vehicle. This led to the vehicle catching fire, us having to run out of the vehicle, and the car went up in flames. The car burnt to the floor and could have ended a lot more dangerously if we hadn’t acted quickly. This could have put others at risk if it had hurt nearby pedestrians or drivers passing by. I believe that drivers need to understand the routines of driving and predriving. Checking mirrors, checking brakes, understanding the gauge cluster, and to really understand your vehicle, can all help prevent tragedies happening internally, potentially hurting others. New driver education should definitely be enforced every couple of years to ensure that even the older and more “experienced” drivers are getting up-to-date facts on how to drive more safely.

Ways to Educate Drivers

Some ways to increase driver safety is to increase how much education is getting out to people. Requiring possible classes to be taken every 5 years or so to reup on drivers’ knowledge can keep people safer as they are refreshed on what it means to drive safely. Another method can be to be stricter on driving rules. For example, because so many people go 15-20 miles per hour over the speed limit on this road I take, it is the new norm and this means everyone drives around 60 mph. Police won’t stop someone unless they are going around 70+ mph. This means that because everyone changed this rule, police will overlook it. This is a lot more dangerous because going a speed limit is a lot safer and allows for a higher chance of survival if an accident does occur.

Conclusion

All in all, driver education is incredibly important and should definitely be the focus for many new drivers, as well as the older drivers. Implementing it more into our media and regulated tests, can help curb a lot more accidents, therefore leading to a unity of safer driving altogether. Providing free education and mandatory quizzes/tests can allow for better driver safety. Potentially using incentives for safe driving such as lower car insurance costs, or using trackers to see how fast people drive and how safe to allow for lower vehicle costs can also incentivize safer driving.

Thank you!

Drive Safely!