Accidents are Accidents for a Reason

Driving, for most people, is something that gives a person a sense of freedom. It’s almost as if they can go or do anything that they want. But not everyone understands that with that freedom comes a responsibility like no other. A responsibility to keep yourself and others around you safe. However, if you neglect all of those responsibilities then you risk putting yourself and others in danger. It is important to teach new drivers how to be safe on the road. To make sure they know and understand everything they need to know. If these drivers can understand the things they need to do before driving, then they can help reduce the number of people who die due to irresponsible driving. Most of the time it’s just simple things that people forget, or its people being impatient, or thinking that they are king or queen of the road. People just don’t understand that they are not the only people on the road. Something as simple as actually using your turn signal when switching lanes to notify the person next to you that you are planning on switching, or actually stopping at a stop sign could help reduce the number of accidents. Staying off your phone, paying attention to your surroundings and not speeding through neighborhoods where people are walking and kids are playing could reduce the amounts of deaths related to reckless driving. In March of 2021, my friend and I had been in an accident. It wasn’t anything horrible, but it was a result of her being an impatient driver. We were crossing traffic and there was a car in the middle between the two lanes, waiting to go. But my friend got impatient as to why they weren’t going and went around them, this caused her to turn out too far and ram the front passenger side of her car into the tire of a box truck. I also have been in a car many times where the driver was not driving responsibly, they were speeding and just switching lanes and seemed to pay no mind about other people around them. When I asked them about it, they responded with “I have been driving for years, I am an excellent driver”. But the problem is that it doesn’t matter how long you have been driving or how “great” of a driver you are. Accidents happen, that’s exactly why they are called accidents. You don’t expect them to happen and you certainly don’t want them to happen. Unexpected things happen all the time, and if you drive more responsibly then you can reduce the risk of causing an accident. But even if you are safe on the road that doesn’t mean that people around you are. Which is why everyone needs to understand what it means to be a safe driver, so that nobody gets hurt or killed. All of this is why we need to teach safer driving to teens, telling them to make sure they pay attention to their surroundings and to stay off their phones. Don’t drive while intoxicated and be careful driving at night. While all of these things may seem like common sense, people don’t understand how dangerous these actions are to themselves and others. Because well “I do this all the time and have never been in an accident”, but it doesn’t matter how often you’ve done it and have been space. It only takes once, one time you are looking at your phone instead of the road and ram into the car in front of you or run a red light and get t-boned or hit a kid who ran out into the road. You need to be paying attention and have a fast reaction time. But if you are looking at your phone you won’t have the ability to have a reaction, because it will just happen. To be a better and safer driver, you need to understand the dangers of driving first. You need to realize the consequences of unsafe driving, and how to avoid those consequences. You need to learn how you can save yourself and all the other drivers around you. You need to use common sense and understand the wrong ways to drive. People think just because they have never been in an accident that means they will never be in an accident. But accidents just happen, they are unpredictable, and most times avoidable. As long as you are paying proper attention to all the things that surround you. You are not immune and no one else around you is, so don’t put other in danger because you want to be unsafe.