Creating a Culture of Safety

No matter how much training youth drivers receive, some still choose to do stupid things. Increasing driver education would help to increase awareness of the possible challenges and possible situations that a youth driver could be put through. It would be through increasing the understanding of those challenges and situations that the culture around driving could be changed as youth began to recognize their own inability to successfully recover from reckless driving. That relization would help decrease the amount of stupid things youth drivers would do. As we change the culture around driving to one that encourages safe driving, we will see a strong decrease in the number of driving related deaths.

From a youth perspective, it seems there’s almost an excitement around driving recklessly. I myself do not agree with that, however I see fellow peers who enjoy that excitement. If there were better driver education programs, my peers would better understand the possible negative situations that they could be in. In turn, though might take a while, the culture around driving could change. It would be through this change that we would see a change in the number of deaths as result of driving, as more people start driving cautiously.

As mentioned previously, the way to reduce the number of deaths related to driving is to change the culture around driving to one that is more cautious, instead of showy. As more people begin to drive safer, we would see a reduction in the amount of driving related deaths.

Yes. I haven’t been exposed to much dangerous driving but I have seen one of my friends do some driving that was reckless. It was interesting to watch as he tried to show off, and then ended up damaging a fence. I have heard of friends who have driven well over, and almost double the speed limit. From what I have seen or heard of, driving at one’s limits is considered cool by many youth. People I know will compare their max speeds in a way to show off. If we were able to change the culture around this, so that speeding or doing tricks was not considered as exciting or cool, then I think we would see a sharp decrease in the number of driving related deaths. When a person is driving at 120 miles per hour, their reaction time is so limited when compared to the distance they travel, that small mistakes can quickly lead to death.

Personally, I drive fairly safely, but I could increase my focus while driving. I have noticed recently that I have become less strict when I drive, so I could work to be more attentive when driving. I also live in a place where it snows, so I could practice (in a safe area with a trained adult) driving in the snow and what to do in the scenario where I were to lose control of the car. I will also try to discourage my friends from driving recklessly. I will try to reduce the cool factor of doing dangerous things in a car. I hope that by doing so, I will help start that change in culture.