Safer Driving Environment

Safer Driving Environment – Kobernusz-Gibbs, Sophia

Driver education is fundamentally connected to driving performance and safety. University of Nebraska’s Office of University Communications released a study that found drivers who had not completed driver’s education were 24% more likely to be in a fatal driving accident. There was a second study that showed students who took classes over logging driving hours were in “significantly fewer accidents and traffic tickets than the group that logged driving hours without formal driving instruction” (Reed, Communications). While somethings are believed to be universally understood, like how to treat right turns on a red, there is still the training aspect, like parallel parking close enough to the curb, that aid in avoiding lessons that have a brutal cost. Practice in safer environments occur during driver education, the instructors usually start in a parking lot and then move toward the complex socially interactive road. Whereas if a guardian is teaching their child, most likely it will be a situation of driving the guardian into town, there is no ease into the stressful environment of driving. Therefore, it cannot be effectively or safely done in the long term. It is like trying to learn how to box an hour before the match, you will probably get the form wrong to win the match, you might win the match but your body will hurt from punching incorrectly. These incorrectly built habits affect drivers and the roads they traverse.

Attending driver education classes is proven to reduce the number of deaths due to driving. Additionally, further cementing behaviors that inhibit driving or that lead to bad driving habits. Like being under the influence, eating, multitasking while driving, or rushing oneself when it is unnecessary. The CDC reported that in 2016, 10,497 people died due to alcohol-impaired driving. Decide to Drive referred to a Lytx study in 2014, they found that a driver who is drinking or eating is 3.6 times more likely to crash than drivers not participating in the same behavior. Multitasking like texting and driving increases your risk of an accident by 23 times, ask the New York Times. People get into accidents because they are stressed about timing. Driver education reaffirms these statistics and these risks, they teach time management when it comes to driving safely. Creating an environment that is healthy to drive in, may sound corny but it is true.

The first accident I was in was when my brother was driving in Seattle, Wash., I was 12 and he was 21 and had been driving for about three years. In the first accident, my brother was stressed, trying to navigate the crazy city of Seattle, looking at a map on his antiquated phone, and he accidentally let the wheel move too far to the right and hit a city bus. Luckily, no one was on the bus except for the driver and she was not hurt, my family in the car was okay, scared but bodily fine, though the car was undrivable. My brother went to driving school, paid attention, and did well on all his tests, but with the stress of driving at night in an unfamiliar city, all the training and lessons went out the window, almost literally. Stress plus the distraction of looking at the map did not end well. I was on the side that hit the bus, I could have very easily gotten hit in the head had the vehicles collided a little longer, and I shudder to think what could have happened.

I want to participate in this conversation of making myself and other drivers better, safer. I can plan out drive time to location as to not rush myself while driving. Also, I can talk to other drivers about driving stressed or distracted. We talk about what is something that stresses us out while driving and how can we combat that stress. I get stressed about making lane changes, what can I do to improve that? Double check all my mirrors before changing lanes, a simple solution I learned from driver education. If I get take out food, I wait till I get to a safe location to eat it, I don’t turn up the radio too loud while I drive so I don’t get absorbed into my own head. These are practices that have saved my life because I paid attention to the road, these practices are things that were instilled in me, not from my parents or friends, but driver education. They want us to be safe on the road, that is the priority through all of this. Safer drivers, less death, and less trauma on the road.

Works Cited

“Eating While Driving.” DecidetoDrive, Auto Alliance Driving Innovation, www.decidetodrive.org/distracted-driving-dangerous/eating-driving/.

“Impaired Driving: Get the Facts.” Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 24 Aug. 2020, www.cdc.gov/transportationsafety/impaired_driving/impaired-drv_factsheet.html.

Reed, Leslie. “Study: Driver’s Ed Significantly Reduces Teen Crashes, Tickets.” UNL News Releases, Office of University Communications – University of Nebraska-Lincoln, 13 Aug. 2015, newsroom.unl.edu/releases/2015/08/13/Study:+Driver’s+ed+significantly+reduces+teen+crashes,+tickets#:~:text=Young%20drivers%20who%20have%20not,an%20accident%2C%20the%20study%20showed.

Richtel, Matt. “In Study, Texting Lifts Crash Risk by Large Margin.” The New York Times, The New York Times, 27 July 2009, www.nytimes.com/2009/07/28/technology/28texting.html.