Safety Behind The Wheel

The privilege of driving is often taken for granted by individuals, especially those of younger ages. A sense of invulnerability mixed with a distorted view of priorities often drives these younger drivers to focus on mental barriers such as their phones or music, rather than solely focusing on the road. This results in a high mortality rate for young drivers and is also a key factor in the reasoning behind high insurance payments for beginning drivers. Phones and other personal devices are often a key component to individuals as a primary source of their communication and social aspects of their lives, and so they are often highly prioritized. Most young drivers have also never experienced the dangers of driving a vehicle due to their lack of experience behind the wheel. These two factors work together to develop a false sense of confidence and ability for young drivers and should be the primary focus when attempting to mitigate car accidents. Many drivers also don’t realize the speed they are actually going, as modern vehicles often provide a very smooth ride which masks the bumps and actual speed of the vehicle. This speed is a privilege to handle and a driver’s license is supposed to represent an individual’s ability to wield it responsibly. Education for young or inexperienced drivers should first be expanded to not only cover the rules of the road, but also to emphasize the dangers that the road imposes. The experiences of others should be used to help these drivers reflect on their own actions and to make them think twice before picking up their phone. Another strategy that drivers can use is to make sure they answer all of their notifications before their trip, or plan a series of pit stops along their journey if they know they are going to be busy. This will eliminate the urge to answer texts right away and will help focus drivers as they won’t feel the pressure to succumb to their phones. An experience these drivers can learn from comes from my own life, as at a very young age I was exposed to the dangers of the road. My mother, grandmother, and two aunts both were in a very destructive accident due to the actions of a distracted driver. That driver took a red light going very fast and hit my mother’s car from the side as they were passing a green light. This took the life of my, at the time, 15 year old aunt, had my mother in the ICU for months and left her with chronic body trauma and a metal plate where her cheekbone originally was, heavily injured my grandmother, and left my aunt, who was only months old, with permanent brain damage. Due to that driver deciding a few distracted seconds would be acceptable, my family now suffers for life, not only physically, but also emotionally. Speaking from experience, I truly ask drivers of all ages to please save the text, the phone call, or the notification, focus on the road, and to park it before you read it.