A Nation Driven by Accidents

It is not a secret that one of the major causes of death in the United States are car crashes. We all also already know not to drive while on the phone, while drunk, or while under the influence of any other drug. We know about the consequences of a car crash, as well as the risks of making the wrong decisions which many have already paid for. If so, even when we are being constantly bombarded with warnings about the causes of car crashes from not just the authorities but also from victims, why are people still dying? Many would say accidents just happen, that the roads are dangerous, and we need to be careful, but this cannot be stressed enough. Unfortunately, “physical learning” has become a trend among citizens not just nowadays but also throughout the years, and which consists of not following safety guidelines in any scenario where there could be an imposing risk on an individual due to an excess of confidence. In other words, if it hasn’t happened to someone, that someone won’t learn.

Many drivers (especially the younger generations) are this type of learner, not only on the roads but also in their daily lives. For example, a teenager won’t care about their phone being taken away while using it during class until the teacher ends up confiscating it after several threats and warnings. Driving an automobile poses similar scenarios which sadly include the same teenage majority. Many teenagers don’t take driving as such a serious affair until a friend, relative, or themselves get in a car crash and experience the consequences of the accident firsthand. I have been, not a victim, but a witness of such kinds of people from this group. I am a teenager as well, and I often see myself surrounded by people my age (most of them premature drivers) and who have also driven me around on certain occasions. I personally prefer to avoid having to be driven by teenagers unless it is completely necessary or if I’m in immediate need of a lift, which causes me to feel a level of anxiety I don’t feel anywhere else. I can never help but notice the multiple ways in which my life has been put at risk because of a driver’s bad habits. “Small” things such as texting while driving, scrolling through music playlists, and taking pictures are not uncommon practices for the average teenage driver. Personally, I cannot understand how quickly people can fall into complete confidence in themselves after having been driving right after getting their license. But, as said, most teenagers are physical learners, and their rebellious nature cannot be tamed by someone else. Moreover, not only teenagers are a main cause of car crashes, but there are plenty of immature and “childlike” adult drivers as well, adults who somehow cannot manage to control their emotions on the roads, leading to disastrous events.

In my life, my parents have always been the main source of my fear for driving since they are the ones who have put the most pressure on me about this topic. Apart from its fatal risks, they also have stressed secondary priorities such as monetary expenses whenever one is involved in a car crash. Most of their influence comes from their own personal experiences, which have been relatively diverse but equally dangerous experiences, and which also have been told to me and my siblings by them. My mother, for example, was involved in a car crash when she was a little kid. As she and her family drove down a highway, a tire suddenly dived into the windshield of her car, knocking it over and almost severely injuring her. She said the reason why this accident was so close to being fatal was because of the lack of seatbelts; the usage of seatbelts was almost (if not never) not encouraged during the 80’s, with these being mere fashionable and expensive accessories that not many cars had back then. Thanks to this, my mom has always told me and my siblings to wear seatbelts in any type of automobile. My father’s lessons, however, don’t come from his personal experiences but from his job. He is a safety manager at a factory, and he is in charge of examining worker accidents in order to come up with solutions that will prevent any accident, or similar ones, from happening again. In this line of work, one of the tasks that my dad has had to complete was to analyze Go-Pro footage of road accidents of his company’s delivery trucks. He has explained to me that his observations have helped him come up with the reason for these crashes: drowsiness. Many exhausted drivers, not only workers but also the average citizens, are victims of road accidents due to lack of rest very often, which poses a terrifyingly common risk while driving.

We can now infer that immaturity, drowsiness, and neglecting safety measures are the main reasons for car crashes in not just the country but also the world. Even if you or another aren’t responsible for any of these causes, someone else will be, putting at risk at least another person’s life. These three causes also fall into the category of being a “human error”. Human error is a term that my driver’s ed teacher used often when he referred to any error caused by accident and that could be done by any driver, regardless of how skilled they are. This abstract “spectrum” of human errors is very diverse not because of a plentiful list of accidents that could happen, but because of its many different aspects. In other words, human brains work differently between each person, with each individual having different sets of priorities and thoughts during their daily lives, meaning that we could never know why a person chose to drink and drive, or why they chose not to pay attention to warning signs on a road, or why texting on the phone is more important than a life.

Conclusively, authorities and educational institutions can encourage safe driving all and as much as they want, but there will always be at least one person who won’t have their priorities straight and will often choose the wrong decisions. However, this doesn’t mean that safety shouldn’t be encouraged at all since there’s also groups of people who are good drivers and follow guidelines, as well as setting up a baseline for any physical learners that unfortunately had to learn the hard way and turned their priorities towards the right path.