Safe Drivers Save Lives

Paige Hartmann

In the Driver’s Seat

DmvEdu

18 November 2020

Safe Drivers Save Lives

As the years go by in our society, more and more deaths occur from car induced accidents. Whether it’s from just taking a sip of water and not looking at the road for a split second or something more serious like being intoxicated before hitting the road, we have all seen this topic of being a safe driver. What our society doesn’t talk about enough though is the importance of driver education.

Yes, parents can do an excellent job of teaching their children how to operate a vehicle, but do they know as much as these licensed driving instructors? According to the University of Nebraska Lincoln News Release, “11.1% of the driver’s education students were involved in a car crash, while 12.9% who haven’t taken driver’s ed were involved as well.” From this statistic, it is clear that people who have taken the driving course have had better success in not getting involved in car accidents. The main purpose of driver education is to help others learn the laws that will keep you safe on the road. Most of the time, driver’s ed is focused more on the laws, not so much on the on-road practice. It is important to know the laws surrounding driving, some parents might not even know about. Taking driver education is an important step in making others more aware of what they are doing, thus bringing down the number of deaths.

Driving accidents come in many shapes in sizes, whether it’s a simple hitting of a mailbox to causing serious injury and even death to another human being. There are many ways we can bring the number of deaths down. The number one cause of car accidents in the world is distracted driving. People using their phones, applying makeup, and even just reaching down to grab something. We as drivers need to be aware of the road more by simply waiting to do things. Driving already involved multitasking and adding even more to driving, can cause our brain to not focus on what is going on on the road.

We all need to just put our phones down, texting your friend “lol” is not worth hurting yourself or others. In 2020, a reported number of about 390,000 injuries have occurred from texting while driving. Causing injury is not worth talking to anyone, put the phone down, and focus on the road. One of the main ways we can bring phone use down is by having car lockboxes. When the car is moving, putting our phones into something hard to get to will make us not reach for it all the time. As they say about a lot of things, out of sight out of mind. Also, a simple silencing of our phones makes a huge difference. If we do not hear anything, nothing is happening on our phones that we are missing out on.

Personally, I have thankfully not been in a car accident. Unfortunately though, in 2019 my school lost the lives of four beautiful 16- year- old girls to a tragic car accident. They were going too fast down a road, hit a guard rail, tumbled into a ravine, and their vehicle was set ablaze. This was a heartbreaking time in our community that made us all think about the dangers of the road. I remember sitting with my friends and thinking about how precious life is. It can be taken away in a blink of an eye. This would not have happened if they were taught how serious cars are and the major responsibility that a vehicle withholds in us.

We can all take better steps to improve our road safety for ourselves and others. Personally, something I can do is make sure that I am fully awake on the road by waking up earlier before hitting the road. This would make me 10x more aware of my surroundings and ensure that I am alert and attentive. I also drive with a lot of texters, I always tell them to please put their phone down, but sometimes they need a little more of a push. I could try to ask them if I could text for them or say something like, “Is that text worth putting our lives in danger?” This would make them think a lot more about their actions and how dangerous they are really being.

We all have certain driving habits that can put ourselves or others in danger. By having driver education being more prominent in all youth and even adults, we can make the curve of driving deaths lower. We as a society need to step up and pay more attention to the road and teach people proper driving skills in the education program. The text, the mascara, the sip of coffee can all wait if it means saving more lives.