Car safety

Car safety

Jonathan Moriel Ortiz

Cars have changed so much in only a short period of time, where safety features like ABS, seat belts, traction control, accident avoidance systems, and so much more have become something we are so used to. People nowadays take these things for granted, but what they don’t know is that it was a lot different before. For example, airbags didn’t become a standard thing until 1998, and the first car to use a parking sensor was in 2003 used in a Toyota Prius and collision avoidance systems started back in 2006 but it was for a Mercedes Benz and it did not become available for cheaper cars until years later. The thing about cars is that they are filled with incredible technology that has taken years to perfect and now almost every car has them, however, we tend to take things for granted until tragic happens. 

I have seen some car accidents in my life but I have also seen some people act irresponsibly while driving. When I was in high school a few people wanted to show their skills like they were in a Fast and Furious movie, I saw this one person who always skidded his car on purpose when it rained because with traction control he couldn’t do it when it was dry so he waited for when the ground was wet. And there is always somebody on their phone while driving whether it is on the freeway or at a stoplight, but those actions are not ok and they always have consequences. The person who skidded his car while it was wet hit a curb and almost flipped his car and at the same time damaged his vehicle where it was too expensive to fix and so he had to downgrade and get another car that was a lot older than his 2016 car Honda Accord.  

The good news is that these didn’t lead to anybody getting hurt but it could have and while cars now have the technology to keep a person safe or even help prevent an accident, they can not account for human error. People can’t just rely on their vehicles to keep them safe, we have to use driver education to teach people that having a car doesn’t mean you can speed through the roads and try to do stunts. They have to realize that driving is a privilege and not a right and that when you are driving you have a big responsibility because if you take your eyes off the road just to take a call or look at a text message, tragic events can happen in only just a few seconds. That is why when people drive they should remember to put their phone away and keep their eyes on the road because while they are driving their lives are not the only ones on the line. When every precaution is taken it means that lives are saved every day when people are driving responsibly.