Brakes Before Mistakes

During my high school season of volleyball, we never had buses to take us from game to game due to our low funding. Instead, we got rides from our friends, and unfortunately, on one of our game days, my dad decided to step up and be the driver for three of my unlucky teammates. I dreaded this moment because throughout my years of being driven by him, I always got carsick because of how reckless he drove. Knowing this, I made sure before the drive to keep paper bags in my backpack just in case. We began our journey, and immediately my dad began to drive recklessly. I was used to this but began to cringe at the thought of how my friends felt. Immediately after five minutes, my friends whispered to me that they felt sick. I tried to tell them not to worry too much — fully knowing that they should be worrying because we weren’t even halfway there yet. Fortunately, I brought the paper bags and reached back from the passenger’s seat to hand them out to everyone. One by one, they all threw up, and unknowingly, my dad continued to drive while he blasted his old Korean music.

We were lucky that no one was seriously injured, but unfortunately, an average of 34,000 people a year are killed due to careless driving. Drunk driving causes around 40 percent of these fatalities, and speeding causes 29 percent of these fatalities. This number is fairly high, considering that it is nearly high enough to be on the top 10 reasons for death in the US. Additionally, as of 2020, the United States of America has exceeded Russia, France, Germany, Japan, England, Australia, Canada, and Italy in car deaths per year.

Tragedies like these highlight how Americans need to take driver education and safety more seriously. Making steps to spend more time on driver education leads to big changes. In fact, education led to 20% less fatal crashes from sixteen-year-old drivers.

The simple steps you take as a driver can make a big impact in these statistics. Small steps like not texting or being on your phone while you drive or bigger steps like running public awareness campaigns on the dangers of speeding, DUI’s, and distracted driving all can reduce the number of deaths while driving.

These statistics don’t exist in a vacuum. One of my closest friends of five years recently had an experience with driving that changed my perspective on how important safety really is. His sister and her boyfriend were driving on a random Sunday night when suddenly a driver crashed into them. It was extremely late at night, so they couldn’t identify who was driving, and even worse, it took the paramedics even longer to arrive. Unfortunately, the boyfriend had died in the accident with my friend’s sister being left in a wheelchair until recovery. Hearing this story made me realize that the statistics I hear about aren’t just numbers, as these things really do happen.

Being fifteen years old, I only have recently started my journey to getting my permit and, eventually, my license. Through this process, I have always made sure to pay close attention to my course and take it very seriously. In the near future on the road, I expect myself to drive responsibly. I can also talk to friends and family about the importance of being safe on the road, mostly impacting those who are close to me. To impact beyond, I can raise awareness on social media about the importance of being safe when driving. Many Instagram and TikTok accounts have posted on driver safety, some using shock videos of car crashes and others talking about their own personal experiences. While these videos may just seem effective for content, they really do have an impact. As I was taking my online course for driving, my mom walked into my room and took me out to get food nearby. Before my mom started driving, I showed her the TikTok account that showed all the crashes happening because of either carelessness or other factors. My mom’s tendency to speed sometimes over the speed limit in neighborhoods always bugged me, but after she saw this video, she began to become more aware of how fast she should be going.

With the amount of deaths in the U.S, ranging from any age, driving education and safety are extremely important. Taking driver education more seriously as well as paying attention to the road and practicing safe habits will hopefully change these statistics.