Distracted Driving and Driver Awareness

There are over a million deaths from car crashes each year, and the main cause of these deaths is irresponsible driving. The lack of driver education has become fatal and it is up to drivers to take responsibility to help reduce the fatality of driving. Driver education raises awareness of the dangers of driving and it teaches people about the risks they take everytime they are out on the road. It is also very important to teach teenagers and young adults who are just starting to drive driver education, because teaching them good skills and awareness from a young age will help them develop good driving skills and strategies.

Increasing driver education and awareness is only one way to help reduce the number of driving related deaths. Another way to reduce the number is to increase safety measures on the road. That means more visible road signs, more red light cameras, more cops on patrol, more rubble strips on the side of the road, and anything that will make people more aware. There also needs to be more work done on back roads to keep them smooth and safe. Almost every city in the United States has back roads that are rocky, rough, and unkept, and that is because the city simply does not pay as much attention to those back roads as they do to the more popular and more traveled roads, and yes, those roads are more important to keep safe, but that does not mean that the back roads are not important.

One of the biggest dangers on the road are distracted drivers. According to End Distracted Driving, an organization committed to ending the dangers of driving while distracted, distracted drivers cause up to eight percent of car crash fatalities, and one in five of that eight percent are people who were not even in a car. They could be riding a bike or walking their dog, or they could be children playing in the street. Distracted driving has taken so many innocent lives, and yet people still continue to do it. Why? A lot of distracted drivers may not even realize that they are driving distracted. Being distracted could be looking at your phone, talking to someone (whether they be in the car or on the phone), it could be looking up at the clouds, or getting lost in thought. It could also be driving tired after a long day at work or looking down to adjust your music. All of these little things could add up to something so much bigger. You may be coming home after a hard day at work and you are feeling tired, but you insist that you must get home and you can still drive fine. You have trouble staying focused and you close your eyes for just a second, and in that second, a child runs out into the street right in front of your car, and after that there is no going back. A hard day at work just turned into something so much worse. You may think that you are driving safe, that at least you are not driving drunk, or swerving in and out of traffic, or speeding, but one small mistake can change your life or other people’s lives forever, or it could end it right there.

Everyone has either been in a car crash, or knows someone who has been in one. When my older brother, Dylan, was little, he was in a car crash with my mom. They were stopped at a stop sign and were just rolling into the intersection when a lady crashed into the side of their car, totally missing her stop sign. She had been on her phone, driving distracted like so many other people, but this time she had to pay for the consequences. Luckily everyone was ok, just shaken up, but the situation could have been so much worse, and it has been for a lot of people. Even minor car crashes can cause severe back or neck problems, or end with someone having a heart attack from a stress disorder.

I have also been in a car crash, but mine was not as bad. It was when I was sixteen and just got my driver’s license so I could drive myself to school. I was driving through the parking lot after school to get in line to leave the parking lot when another student came out from between two cars and hit the back left corner of my car. He had not been paying attention and did not stop to look if any cars were coming. We were both okay and exchanged information, but his parents never contacted mine about paying for the damage my car took (it was just a small dent) because apparently they did not have any insurance on the car. Distracted driving is bad and driving in general can be dangerous, but not having your car insured can turn a simple mistake into an ordeal. So, for the safety and security of you and your car, car insurance is important to have.

It is crucial to be safe while driving, and there are many things you can do to be a safe driver. Avoid driving while tired or under the influence, watch out for people, animals, or objects that could be in the road or on the side of the road, and drive defensively. Driving defensively means watching your surroundings, paying attention to what other drivers are doing, using your turn signals and lights to alert other drivers about what you are doing, checking your blind spot before merging, and not driving distracted. Paying attention to every little thing at every single second is challenging, and mistakes will be made, but it is important to try your best, and together, everyone can look out for each other on the road.