why and how you should drive safely

As a student who has almost been in multiple car accidents, driving safely is something that is very important to me. My father has preached driving cautiously ever since I first started to learn when I was fifteen years old. He was involved in a very dangerous car accident when he was nineteen years old and was hit by a drunk driver. Luckily for him, he escaped with only minor head injuries. This is why driver safety and driving safely are extremely important to me.

Being educated as a driver is extremely important to help better your chances of staying safe on the road. If you understand how traffic is and how drivers in your city tend to drive, then you can help protect yourself and others. An example of this is just simply knowing the size of your city. As someone who has lived in a fast growing city my whole life (Tucson, AZ), I have noticed a trend in types of drivers. With lots of people moving in comes lots of different backgrounds and driving styles. California is known to not have the best drivers in the world just because of how big their cities are and how their transportation works. A lot of Californians have moved here for more affordable living and have made our city grow a lot, thus causing an increase in traffic and wreckage. If you can understand this as a driver, then you’ll be more cautious and safe on the roads. This can help save lives.

A simple step that can be taught to all drivers (especially younger ones) is to not text and drive. A good way to help this is by setting up your phone to block its usage while driving. I’ve done this and found it extremely helpful. If we get people on their phones while driving, it will help save countless lives and prevent multiple injuries.

As mentioned earlier, I have been extremely close to multiple car accidents but have thankfully never been in one. When returning from church, my friend was merging lanes coming up to a light at roughly fifty miles per hour. A car was speeding up to the light behind him and was inches away from hitting us. We were extremely lucky to not get hit and drive off like nothing happened. Unfortunately, I have seen very lethal car accidents. Not from my family or friends, but rather random drivers. One Christmas eve when coming back from church (man, something about driving home from church), a driver was trying to turn while not being in the turn lane. Not seeing this, the other driver kept going and they crashed and rolled each other’s cars over. Fortunately, nobody was killed or even hurt. I have been in cars though where my friends are driving extremely irresponsibly. When coming back from top golf one night, my friend wanted to impress this girl that has a really nice car. They raced in areas where the speed limit is roughly 20-30 MPH going 60 plus MPH. I’m not one who is into racing or even driving fast in general, so this was definitely scary for me. Thankfully, my friend was cool with my concern and started to drive normally again. I have been in bad situations with drivers, but thankfully I have always gotten out of them safely.

Steps that I can take as a driver and so can others is very simple yet useful. Like I said earlier, do not text and drive. It’s very cliche to hear that, but yet it is super important and can save your life and others. It’s not worth it to check a text and risk your life while doing so. Secondly, know the area you are driving in. People drive a lot differently and more aggressively on highways than they do in town. Be cautious at all times no matter where you are driving, but especially on highways while going fast speeds. This is an even more obvious one as it is illegal to do so, do not drink and drive. If you are out and get a little tipsy, there are plenty of alternatives to get home than driving yourself. Ask a friend or call an uber or taxi. It is not worth it to put your life on the line because you are suffering the consequences of getting drunk. It is definitely not okay that other people might have to deal with your decisions and bad ones at that. There are plenty of things you can do to keep you and yourself safe. These are just some of them.