Safety on the Road

Safety on the Road

Brad Hawkins

Driving is such an extreme privilege that people take the most for granted. The usefulness that vehicles bring us has become so important in our day to day lives and many people have been misusing and taking this tool for granted. Driver’s education for beginner drivers is an excellent tool to teach teeneagers about the rules and tries to present safety for everyone on the road. Through the power of choice many choose to stop believing in these lessons after a time. The most prevalent of these accidents bring distracted driving and technology. More often than not our generation will be on the phone, texting, changing the song or on some form of social media. Our generation thrives on this sense of instant gratification and instantaneousness and it is because of that belief system that people’s impatience to send that text or make that phone call has taken so many lives. Especially now with technology becoming even more integrated with bluetooth it is still a major hindrance to drivers. The most pivotal step that manufacturer’s could make would be to take the technology out of the cars design and not let that be the main selling point of the product. They should be investing in safer designs such as better handling, tires and all weather features. The police as well are doing all that they can but they can not catch everyone being distracted on their phone, eating, drinking and just endangering the lives of many people. Although I personally have witnessed that the police sometimes do not enforce this as much as they should be. There have been multiple instances of officers not ticketing or even bothering to talk to the offenders. From personal experience I have seen my friends and family being distracted drivers on multiple occasions. The first example was late at night we were driving home from our performance and my friends were blasting music in the car and a deer decided to run across the road at the wrong time. My friend luckily did not hit the deer but almost swerved the car into the ditch about to tip the car over. If they had not turned the music up so loud he would have been able to pay more attention to the road and spotted the deer. Another such instance was my father almost falling asleep at the wheel. It was very late at night and we were all tired from the long day. Beforehand we asked if he was okay to drive or if we should find somewhere else to stay the night. We were all asleep as he shut his eyes and slowly moved into the opposite lane and into the ditch. The sound of a car honking from the left lane woke us up as he diverged back into the right lane as quickly as he could. This was probably the scariest experience I have ever had in my life. The steps I take to be a better driver and prevent anything like these situations to happen to myself or others would be to keep my phone in my pocket. The phone call can wait and I do not have to answer that text immediately, they can wait five minutes. Do not eat or drink while driving my car, even taking your eyes off the road for a second can turn into a bad situation. Most importantly I will never drive impaired ever. The simplicity of this statement seems like common knowledge but it is insane to think of how many people still drive impaired every year. Those people do not just affect themselves they also affect the lives of other drivers, their families and the driver’s family. Driving is such a privilege that we get to experience but the many distractions that this generation provides for us are a major hindrance for driversIf we could only put these aside and retain the information that drivers education provided for us when we were learning the road would be a much safer place for all of us. I think at some point everyone has to take a step back and examine themselves from a non-biased perspective and truly ask if they are being conscious of their decisions to be focused or distracted while driving.