Name: David Melara
From: Cranford, New Jersey
Votes: 0
The
Huffington Post lists distracted driving as the leading cause of
automobile accidents
in
the United States. The solution to this silent but oh so deadly
crisis seems very simple…
because
it is. Humans, as a species, are noted to fall into the mind trap
that is Complexity Bias.
To
paraphrase, this illogical form of thought process is derived from
the innate tendency to favor
solutions
to given problems that seem complex and involving many parts, as
defined by the
Farnam
Street mental models blog. Many believe that the solution to the
rising number of
automobile
accidents involves a long and slow road of automobile reform and how
systems that
are
currently in place need to be restructured. A 2015 study conducted at
the University of
Nebraska-Lincoln
disagrees.
Of
a study that analyzed the driving history of over 150,000 young
drivers in Nebraska
alone,
it was found that approximately 53 percent of the youth that
qualified for learner’s permits
through
drivers ed courses had a smaller rate of auto-related
incidents as opposed to the
remaining
47 percent of youth who qualified for permits through logged
supervised practice
under
a parent or guardian. The most notable figure was that 11.1 percent
of educated youth had
been
involved in a car crash as opposed to an astounding 12.9 percent of
uneducated youth
drivers
being involved in car crashes.
The
numbers speak for themselves and never lie. Drivers ed is
instrumental in
reducing
auto-incidents and thus potentially saving lives that otherwise would
have been
pointless
and avoidable deaths. Uneducated drivers are 75 percent more likely
to get ticketed and
24
percent more likely to be in a deadly car crash. Yet, many states
ceased funding drivers’
education
courses because they did not see a huge drop in accident rates. On
paper, yes, the
numbers
are small, but these numbers are real people, real drivers whose
lives were being saved
simply
by knowing the rules of the road. There is no need for large-scale
reform or superfluous
additions
to already founded automobile laws. Drivers ed conducted
through approved and
certified
courses are doing plenty to prevent needless death. Rather than
pivoting, we as
Americans
should continue to build upon that which has been demonstrated to
work in real-life
scenarios.
This can easily be done through bills requiring that every person
attain a permit upon
successful
completion of education courses and simply raising awareness by
sharing others’
experiences
such as mine own.
One
week before receiving my license, I was involved in a minor incident
that
squandered
my confidence and raised my anxiety on the road for a year. The other
driver was in
a
rush and side swiped me by going on the left-hand lane. Had she been
properly educated on the
consequences
of this action, the incident would have been prevented and I would
have never
suffered
the mental toll. This applies to every driver on the road. All it
takes to save a life is to be
educated.
