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Round 3 – “How Dangerous Is It, Really”

Name: Kegan Morin
From: Middleton, Idaho
Votes: 0

“How Dangerous Is It, Really”

How Dangerous Is It, Really”

By Kegan Morin

Driver’s education is one of those things that as a young teenager you’re more concerned about finally getting your vehicle and hitting the road on your own for the first time rather than learning how to use it properly. The drivers education course is used so that new drivers understand everything there is to know about the road and how to safely travel from place to place. It is also super important to reduce the amount of deaths each year with better instruction about the road. If you get into any accident at all, it also puts you in a bad position with insurance, making you have to pay more for it now that you are an at risk driver who has been in an accident. Not to mention if that person gets severely hurt you could be the one at fault. More people who know how to drive safely and passively will reduce casualties by a whole lot.

Some of the first few steps that society should take as a whole is to stop using your phone while driving. About twenty five percent of people today under 25 text and drive willingly. A simple text message can distract anyone for just five seconds. Five seconds on the road is enough time to miss something important and the next thing you know you’re in an accident wondering what happened. Another thing that everyone should do to be safer driving is to have as little amount of tasks going on around you as possible. When driving, you are constantly multitasking by looking at your mirrors, checking in front of you, changing your speeds, and a whole bunch of other stuff. Try to not have much going on around you like a conversation with your friend or messing with the radio. Those are all distractions that can take you away from the road which can put you in serious danger. So try to keep the tasks to the minimum while driving to reduce more distraction.

My brother got into a really bad accident a while back. We had just dropped him off with a buddy for both of them to go to work. They had just pulled out into an intersection and failed to see a motorcycle come by them. The cyclist slammed into the back of the truck and flew straight to the asphalt and skidded to a stop. I was horrified at what I saw. My brother’s friend was in tears because of how bad the damage was. The cyclist was yelling in enormous amounts of pain. There were scrape marks all over his body and a huge trail of blood on the asphalt where he slid. My brother was so close to losing his life and his friend was in such a panicked state that he did not know what to think or do. But there are also instances that even when you take all of the safety precautions in the world, it’s sometimes not enough. My friend Charles was driving to Poketello with his mom and got in a terrible wreck. A man was driving down the wrong end of the median. So, my friend swerved out of the way but lost control of the car and rolled straight into a semi truck. My friend and his mom did not make it and died that day. Both of these experiences have shown me that the road is merciless on how it can treat people. Both of them were smart and could have easily changed the world one day but all it takes is a few seconds for it all to be taken away from you. It had hurt me for so long when my friend was killed. And it hurt me even more knowing he was being as safe as he could yet because someone else wasn’t educated enough he was punished.

So to conclude, you can be a safer driver in your own car by just putting your phone away and paying attention to the road and worry less about your music or your seat. Those few things cause most drivers to get in accidents and should be looked at with concern and care. I would never want someone else to have the same feelings I did for when I lost Charles. I want them to be safe so that their friends will always have someone to look toward for help. The road is a scary place, and, in order to navigate it you need to have the knowledge of the system and you need to have the care for you and everyone on the road.