Safety is No Accident

In this day and age, it is more dangerous to be driving in America than it is to be deployed overseas. It is more dangerous to be driving in America than it is to fly in a plane or deciding to just walk home alone at night. Alas, we do it everyday. We unflinchingly set foot in a car with the thought that we may never get out lurking in the backs of our minds. We acknowledge this fact, but shrug it off: I’ll never be one of the 34,000 annual mortalities due to vehicular collisions. But every one of those “numbers” told themselves the same thing. Though death rates have been on a steady decline in the last decade, there is still so much more we can do to make the roads a better place for people who sit behind the wheel for their trip from Point A to Point B without the fear that it could be their last.

Within the same year, I got into the same accident twice. According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, a car accident occurs every 60 seconds, amounting to roughly 5.25 million collisions in 2019. In that year, I was only one in that population, but the grief and impact of that event made it so much more to me. Though I never thought that with my temporary driver’s license, with my mom in the passenger seat while proceeding with the right-of-way at the speed limit towards a green light it would occur, my first accident happened before I could even think.

A car headed the opposite direction of me failed to yield to oncoming traffic–having a flashing yellow arrow–when turning left onto the road perpendicular to the road I was driving on. It was nighttime; my vision was restrained from seeing the field that was beyond the blaring green light ahead of me. It wasn’t until I was in the middle of the intersection did I see a gold minivan hurtling head-on towards me. I was paralyzed with fear. My mom took the wheel. She laid on the horn. The car shuttered to a stop.

“Lauren, get out of the middle of the intersection and pull up along the side of the road, now!” Her profuse orders snapped me out of shock.

I was at a loss of what to do. Admittedly, I never paid too close to my driver’s education courses that taught me how I needed to think and act the second the car collides with another. I was confused for a moment: unable to remember what happened. Somehow, I managed to end up in a parking lot of a dive bar along the road and recollect what I saw and evaluate the damage done to my car and myself. The left headlight was smashed in and the doors could not properly open and close. To sum up the succeeding events, I was not at fault. My mom was unharmed, I was unharmed, the other person was unharmed, but my Dad’s silver Impala was totaled; even so, it does not have to take a lost life to learn a lesson on the road; it takes the awakening that I could be one of those 34,000 annual mortalities to learn the road is spiteful territory and must be deal with caution and responsibility.

My first accident is one I reflect upon quite often. Had I been a couple feet farther ahead when the accident occured, I probably would not be here: looking forward to my future endeavors and all the possibilities that lay ahead of me: all because someone was driving recklessly.

It takes two to make an accident. Though on paper it wasn’t my direct fault, there are still precautions I should have taken. Once I was back on the road after my accident, my behaviors while behind the wheel changed. I was more cautious and less trusting of others on the road. While you can do everything right, it doesn’t make you less of a victim. To be a safer driver, you must always make sure you are in a safe situation. Being a more defensive driver is an imperative trait to have everytime someone is on the road. Always check the surroundings; never get distracted such as grabbing the phone or eating while behind the wheel. While the accident cannot be in your hands as a responsible driver, it can almost certainly be in somebody else’s.

I can also persuade more people to become better drivers themselves by helping my friends become less reckless behind the wheel. Some of my friends speed wherever they go and while doing that they send Snapchats or edit the music on the queue. By really exercising to them that someone that those distractions are not as important as their lives they put on the line, I can keep people in check instead of only tolerating their behaviors.

Driver’s education classes are a wonderful course to take when learning how to be the quintessential defensive driver. I am speaking as someone who never paid an ardent amount of attention to my online drivers education classes and feel like I was missing out on key skills that could have helped me avoid my accident. These courses take universal skills, tips and lessons of driving and give people the best advice they can. I feel like the most highlighted module should be defensive driving because once people learn to become in tune to their driving, less accidents will occur and more lives will be spared. Hopefully with these startling statistics, awareness and actions can be applied in my own and others’ lives; people can be enlightened that the car is not a bunker on wheels and someone’s life can be taken from them before they can think. By being responsible and cognizant, people can realize that: Safety is No Accident.