Suspension and Sensibility

“SUSPENSION
and SENSIBILITY”

Before
doing some reading, I honestly believed that the injuries and deaths
surrounding car accidents was getting better. I thought that with the
major campaigns over the past decade dedicated to ending distracted
driving and accidents in general that it would have moved the dial,
that the numbers would be lower than 34,000 people dying annually.
But that is sadly not the reality we’re living in, though I do
believe that we can attempt to turn this around by asking ourselves
how we can improve the world around us as young drivers.

In
the pursuit of creating a change, I believe that we need a two-prong
approach. The first approach is in the groundwork we’re laying in
drivers ed. I say this because with any system we carry
with us throughout life, we often build upon whatever basic concepts
we learned. With drivers ed, we need more lessons about the
responsibility of driving multi-ton vehicles and the penalties for
not holding to that responsibility. Outside of just how we reinforce
responsibility, we also must stress the importance of selflessness as
a driver. Too often do accidents happen because of distracted
driving, and while other factors go into it, there is a selfishness
in gunning it down a highway at 100 miles per hour to get home early
or to check your phone while driving.

I’ve
honestly witnessed selfish driving habits within my own family and
while I’ve never been negatively impacted by the reckless driving
of others, many have. I’ve seen my father and aunt drive
irresponsibly, and the thing is that I only began noticing after I
started driving myself. With my father it was his tendency to take
his hands off the wheel and kind of steer with his knees on longer
drives along highways, while with my aunt it’s the fact that she
rarely uses turn signals, focusing more on a phone call than the
road. Luckily for those two, no one has ever gotten hurt.

In
conclusion, when I think of what steps I can take to be a better and
safer driver and to help others become safer on the road I think of
responsibility, accountability, and selflessness. Too many times in
life, especially in this country where we prioritize the concept of
the one over the concept of the many, people fall victim to
irresponsible and selfish people making irresponsible and selfish
decisions. Of course in saying that I don’t mean to blame American
society for the issues we have, though it does factor into it in my
mind. Frankly, and I’m wrapping it up here, we just need to
understand that there is power in having a license and we should
treat it as such.