
Name: Alexander Joel
From: Pittsburg, California
Votes: 0
Young
teenagers behind the wheel excited to see where their journey takes
them in the car they’ve long awaited to drive. Loud music playing,
friends interacting and have the time of their lives, and the driver
going full steam ahead without a worry in the world. Then tragedy
strikes. All those joyful, free spirited, and curious teenage lives
brought to an abrupt stop within the blink of an eye.
It’s
stories like these that tend to headline on local news networks
broadcasting and explaining the horrific events of a car crash that’s
taken place. But, this doesn’t have to be another hard pill the
community is supposed to swallow on a daily basis. With proper laws
being enforced and guidelines in place for inexperienced drivers this
reality we face can fade in to a piece of history that has been
gladly laid to rest. But, for any of this to take place, for any
action of the sort to be organized, education of the problem at hand
must come first. With the public properly informed and taught the
basics of driver safety, deaths on the road will descend frequently
due to the action of teachers, regulators, and public servants
putting forth the initiative to save lives. Basic steps include: more
rigorous tests challenging new drivers on their driver safety
awareness, introducing technology that can highlight high-risk
drivers in the area and warn the public, and enforcing speed limits
in high fatality areas.
I
myself, thank God, have never been in a car accident but, my eldest
sister has and the aftermath of it was grisly. The car looked nothing
as it did earlier when she originally left and the pictures made it
look as if the car had been ran through a hydraulic press
horizontally. Luckily, she left the premises with minor cuts and
bruises but, I still think back and find myself pondering: Why does
this type of event happen so often? Why is it that people die so
frequently on the road? Why did this near-death experience have to be
to a loved one?
These
unanswered questions bring me back to the pressing matter at hand
today. What I’ve realized is that true change does not start as
something large and well known but, as something personal. Making
this topic personalized, I plan, once I get my driver’s license, to
drive for my own well being, the drivers I inhabit the roads with,
and the young lives at stake that also partake in the journeys from
Point A to Point B. While this may seem as something to cheer on and
back, I believe the work doesn’t stop here. What can be implemented
next to make this cause more inclusive and defined is the possible
creation of a system where drivers check other drivers and using that
data to create detailed backgrounds on an individual’s driving
tendencies.
To
conclude, motor deaths don’t have to happen. We can prevent them.
We, as one community, will prevent them.