Ignorance Kills

Gianni Cabrera

Drivers Education Initiative Essay

17 November 2020

Ignorance Kills

Last year, in 2019, there were a documented 38,800 approximate deaths by motor vehicles alone. Before the invention of automobiles, nearly 40,000 lives would be safe and protected yearly, at home with the family whom they love. Why does such tragedy have to come as a result of such fine human invention? It does not. Humanity must not suffer because of mankind’s autonomous means of transportation.

All it takes for thousands of lives to be saved yearly is a safe and educated driver. Imagine all the lives that would be protected if only one was aware of how serious driving deaths truly were. That knowledge is something that must be given to society in order for there to be a change. I do not speak from personal preference, but rather, from personal experience. I was once involved in a minor car accident, being in the passenger’s seat, and not much occurred. Insignificant damage was done to both cars, and all humans were perfectly fine. Nevertheless, this event did not change the way I drove, neither did it change the way I thought about others driving. You are probably wondering why such an event did not make me a safer driver, and I was wondering the same thing, until I came across statistical data that made me realize how blessed I was in that instance, because my life could have ended right then and there. Being shown how many people die by motor vehicle accidents each year, it really made wonder why I was still alive. I did not know about these frightening facts, but the knowledge of them now has struck a desire in me to change my ways and be the safest driver that there is; not only for myself, but for those around me, too.

I truly believe, then, that education about driving and death-tolls would really change one’s perspective on vehicle operation, as it certainly did me. This education; these facts; these statistics; this evidence; this data, could all be given as mandatory learning requirements in public schools all across the country, so that our youth would grow as citizens with a knowledge of true danger that exists in the palm of their hands. Higher institutions could implement such ideas as well, and if everyone knew how much safer they could all be, and how much less of a threat they could be to others, the world would really change.

It is accurate to say that in today’s society ignorance brings about irresponsibility. It is even more accurate to say, as the famous Spanish proverb goes, la ignorancia mata, which literally means, ignorance kills. It does not just kill intellectually, but, as we have seen, physically, too. Awareness of the dangers that exist with car incidents should be something that we ought to propone across all academia, especially to our Millennials and our Generation Z, because those are the most avid users of smartphones, which leads to texting while driving and social media use, all while under the control of a motorized vehicle. This needs to stop. Our culture must awaken to the truth of the lives that are lost because of ignorance and irresposiblity. Oh, how many lives would be saved, and how many families would be redeemed, if only one was aware of the destruction they could cause, and the terror they could bring.