The Cost of Transportation

According to the World Health Organization, “Approximately 1.19 million people die each year as a result of road traffic crashes” (Road traffic injuries). As a person who uses the roads to get around daily, I find that transportation costs the population mind-boggling. Out of the 2,514 killed by teen drivers in the USA in 2022, 50% were unbuckled, even with all these deaths people still love to drive and often do it recklessly. There are many ways that we can use to reduce this risk including more driving education, smarter design roads, and other forms of transportation in the USA.

Drivers education is important, it can be complicated with all the moving parts. I put off taking driver’s education because I never had a need or a want to drive, which meant that I took it with a bunch of freshmen at the point where I was not required to take the course. Without a driver’s education, I would not know all the rules as well as I do. The main reason that I put it off as long as I did is because I have watched some of the worst driving. One of these times I watched a truck with a boat driver perpendicular across a five-lane road. They did this so a kid could cross the road while most of the cars on the road slowed to a stop to see what was happening. The car that was in the other lane didn’t so it flowed right past us and stopped before the boat. Now I get that this road was not designed so that a car or a kid could cross it perpendicular to the road, but the driver was inattentive to the rest of the car’s stopping. Most of what could reduce close calls like this is more observant, and attentive drivers.

One of the things that I want to bring up is the German autobahn which for many sections does not have a speed limit. This would lead to you thinking that it is more dangerous, but instead, it is often safer than the USA. According to The Autobahn: Germany’s Highway with No Speed Limit “compared to the 4.5 fatalities per billion km traveled on the US interstate, the autobahn sees just 2.7 fatalities for the same distance” (Moss). This is due to a few factors: one is that they can’t get a driver’s license until they are 18, and the “strict licensing test system” (Moss).

The layout of roads can have a real effect on how people drive. In the last few decades, more roads have been designed for safer travel for all models of transportation. Some of these include groves on freeways. Which were designed by NASA for the landing of the returning space shuttle. These groves help with traction and are now used in many shapes like for runways for aircraft. Other new methods include rumble strips to wake people who fall asleep during long drives, and bike lanes for bikers. They have also reduced the size or added things to the road to make it feel smaller so drivers will stop speeding in residential areas.

One of the things that I wish that we had in the USA is another method of transportation. Such as the expansive railway and subways in Japan and Europe. The European rail system covers a large portion of Europe letting them easily cross between the counter and so little death. Now we also have some railway transport but it is often just left to one city. Another thing that can help reduce transportation deaths is self-driving cars. Now at the moment, it seems like a crazy idea to trust them with your life. At one point airplanes felt the same but because we investigated every crash leading to new rules that reduced deaths. Self-driving cars will reduce car crashes in the long term when we work out all the bugs. In general, we are reducing deaths all the time because of better education and new rules.

In conclusion, driving education is a really important thing to help people learn how to operate a car safely. From being more observant on the road to new rules and regulations to save people’s lives. These are not the only ways we can reduce the cost of transportation. Such as how we design our roads and how we treat them. With us learning from our mistakes we have started to live longer which is a good thing.