Minimizing the Risks on the Road

By using an auto vehicle on a road that serves millions of other people the same way it serves you, you are entrusting that everyone else on the road is capable of driving. Unfortunately, many people make poor decisions that can lead to fatal accidents. Fatal accidents can be mitigated if everyone did their part and devoted their full and undivided attention to the task at hand: driving. It should be made common knowledge that the majority of car accidents occur because the driver was distracted by something in some way, shape, or form. Accidents are not prone to only happening to adults, they can and are more likely to happen to teenagers.

Adults are also at risk when it comes to being involved in a fatal crash, especially because of work schedules and having to come late sometimes. I mention work schedules because I often hear cars racing down the highway when I am trying to fall asleep in the middle of the night. It is not until the next morning that I wake up and see a notification on my phone that is in regards to a fatal accident that happened because of reckless drivers. As I am becoming older, I am starting to realize just how much time I spend in a car and I can see why people who are tired can be more likely to be involved in a crash. If there ever comes a time when there is a tired driver, I would advise that the driver make the wise decision to stay home and not get behind the wheel. With that being said, I feel as though I have even made some unwise decisions in my driving career that have led to me not being fully attentive to the road ahead of me.

I would argue that teenagers may be more at risk of being involved in an accident because of their small and ever expanding attention spans. They are also less aware of how destructible they really are because they may feel a sense of indestructibility. They are also more likely to develop dangerous driving habits that could possibly lead to adding to the already growing statistic of distracted driving accidents. Since the invention of handheld cellular devices, accidents have been growing. As time passes, more younger and younger generations are having an easier time accessing a phone. Parents should be conscious of when they give their children phones, but above everything, they should set an example for the kids who do not know any better than to do as they see. For example, an adult should not be on the phone while operating a vehicle because that alone is dangerous, but even more careless than that is to do so in front of a child that does not know any better. The child can then go on to learn how to drive and subconsciously think it is okay to be on their phone simply due to the fact that they saw an adult do it.

By educating the youth and by spending more money on advertising against distracted driving, I feel as though we can slowly but surely begin changing the way people live their life. With where technology is nowadays, most phones are able to detect how fast it is moving through space. With that idea in mind, I feel as if phone companies have the power to disable the use of their devices if they detect that they are moving past a certain speed. Obviously, like a locked phone, you would still have access to make an emergency call, but the extent of how much use you can get out of your phone while in motion will be limited. While I feel as if this is a good idea, I also feel like if it was a good idea it would have already been implemented into the manufacturing of phones. I have heard of certain apps doing similar things to this, but apps are not necessarily forced upon the user in the same way a phone company could lock the user from accessing specific interfaces. The problem with apps is that you can delete them just as easily as you installed them. While it would be impossible to get the message of attentive driving to everyone, if schools across the globe would start to make it a point to their high school students that they should be driving safely, I feel like it would be a start to something much greater than the idea itself.