Where Does the Answer Lie: Education or Innovation?

Reform for driver’s safety is imperative to the future of our nation. We have drivers ed classes, we have catchy road signs that say memorable rhymes like “click it or ticket” and “arrive alive”. We even have lessons in health classes that talk about the dangers of the road. With all of these provisions and precautions, why do we still have such a high mortality rate when it comes to driving? The answer lies in the way the message is received by the masses, and what is most likely to motivate people to implement what they have learned.

As an 18 year old, I see the role of the eyes and the boredom that my peers feel when they have to go through drivers ed classes. If I am honest, I was one of those people who thought that drivers ed and the testing along with it was useless. However, when 3 of my friends died because of reckless driving incidents, my perspective changed.

Two childhood friends of my family were driving to school when they were speeding past the intersection too fast and collided with another car, killing them both. The entire community was broken over their death, but eventually people reverted back to their reckless driving. This past year, a close friend of mine died when her and her friends were driving on a rainy day and took a turn too fast. She wasn’t wearing a seatbelt, was ejected from the car, and hit a tree. She died on impact as well. Once again, the community grieved temporarily, but people still regressed back to driving the way they wanted to.

This cycle of tragedy, grieving, and regression made me realize something extremely important: the future of drivers ed can’t only be based on warnings and information. Oftentimes, the modules shown in drivers ed and health classes utilize pathos to get the message across, telling tragic stories of people who would still be alive if they had followed the rules. However, emotions aren’t reliable enough to be the foundation for the wisdom needed for driving because people easily release their inhibitions if they feel like a “fun night” would be worth the pay off. Majority of those in accidents are not uneducated about driving; they choose not to follow the rules of the road. My friend knew to wear a seatbelt, but she didn’t. The Brown brothers knew not to speed in an intersection, but they did. A lack of information isn’t the problem.

The steps I want to take to help fix the problem is to partner with the electrical engineer majors at my university to start developing ideas and ways to implement drivers ed policies and precautions into automobiles themselves. For example, adding features to cars that don’t let people start driving until the car registers that the seatbelt is buckled. Common sense isn’t as common as most would think, and for that reason we have to start making changes for the world of driver’s safety now.