Eighty-eight Feet and Just One Drink

Eighty-eight
Feet and Just One Drink

When being driven at sixty
miles per hour, such as is common on freeways, interstates, and
highways, the car travels eighty-eight feet in just one second.
Texting while driving is a something considered by most people to be
a commonality, one that merely takes a few seconds. Yet, while being
distracted for merely four seconds on the freeway, the car can travel
over the length of a football field. In a survey of over 101,000
teenagers, conducted by AAFP, 38% of teenagers reported to texting
while driving. Also, www.CDC.org
estimates that, in the United States, nine people die each day from
phone and other electronic usage while driving.

Most people say that they
are okay to drive if they had just one drink. However, even one drink
impairs motor skills, causes light sensitivity, and blurs peripheral
vision. Drivers ed is very important to allow people to
understand the dangers of driving. Driving is a privilege, not a
right. Any time someone drives, they are taking responsibility for
both their life and the life of everyone else on the road. But
because people are still in the legal limit of blood alcohol content.

Drivers ed, in
addition to allowing soon-to-be drivers to understand the concepts of
driving, shows them statistics about the dangers of such things. If
people knew the danger of distracted and impaired driving, they would
be far less likely to do so.

Steps that can be taken to
reduce the number of deaths due to driving, include stricter laws on
alcohol and driving. To lower the loss of life due to drinking and
driving, the legal BAC should be lowered to zero. If people drink,
they should not drive. At all. Steps should be in place to keep phone
usage to a minimum.

To be a safer driver as well
as help others to be safer on the road, defensive driving should be
taught and practiced. As well, drivers should exercise control over
their emotions. Stupid incidents where people tailgate can cause
accidents that would have been easily preventable. People need to
remember one thing most of all: it can wait. Texts are useless to
answer if someone dies because of them, the person driving slowly in
front of you will not make you as late for a party or meeting as a
car accident from useless road rage, and it costs less to take an
Uber if you have been drinking than it does to replace the car you
chose to drive while under the influence, to say nothing if the loss
of life.

Driving would be much safer
if people knew safe driving techniques from driver learning courses,
and if they remembered what one second of distraction, or one drink
of alcohol can cause.

It can wait!