Keeping America’s Roads Safe

16-year-old Isabelle was driving home with her newly acquired license when she came to an intersection. Glancing around, she didn’t see any cars around, and shrugged, pulling right through, running the stop sign. However, she failed to see the little girl crossing the street, lugging her heavy school backpack, who at that moment had decided to cross the street. Horrified, Isabelle swerved, running onto the sidewalk, subsequently hitting her head on the steering wheel. Accidents like this can happen all the time, thanks to poor driver education for new drivers. What most young adults fail to realize is that driving isn’t simply a step into adulthood and freedom. Rather, it’s a step that needs to be treated with the utmost of care and education, because when a driver is on the road, the lives of everyone around her are in her hands.

It is of extreme importance that new drivers are properly educated before operating a vehicle. Driver education is especially crucial in America, where an average of 34,000 people die each year due to driving-related fatalities. Although it may seem unimportant to a teenager, just seeming as another class to complete and another hour of homework to check off the box, driver’s education will benefit everyone when done properly.

One main issue of improper teenage driving is failure to realize the negative effects of cellphone usage while maneuvering a vehicle. Over one fourth of car crashes are caused by cellphone usage while driving. According to a study from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, during any point in the day, 11 percent of drivers are talking on a cellphone. Thousands of people die every day because the driver was on a cellphone while on the road. Using a cellphone while driving could be compared to reading a book or even closed eyes while driving a car. If people see the foolishness in driving without looking, it should be a clear transition to see why cellphone usage while behind the wheel should be cautioned against. In making known the negative effects of cellphone usage while driving, thousands of deaths can be prevented and car rides will be safer for everyone on the road.

Another major issue is multitasking while manning the vehicle. Multitasking does not allow complete focus on either of the tasks at hand, meaning not only are the driver and everyone on the road put in danger, but the task for which the driver risked lives is not getting complete attention either. A large percent of the population struggles with multitasking in general, which makes doing so in the car all the more dangerous. The National Safety Council (NSC) has advocated for a ban on cellphone usage while driving, which would aid the multitasking-while-driving issue so many teenagers fail to realize needs to be addressed. The NSC has noted the results of studies backing up their claim, including a study taken whose results prove distracted driving leads to a four times greater crash risk. Therefore, to multitask, however skilled at it the driver may be, puts everyone on the road and in the car at risk, giving neither the road nor the task the driver’s undivided attention. By taking eyes off the road, even for a few seconds, the entire car and everyone on the road is put in danger.

36-year-old Daniel was involved in an accident thanks to careless driving and a failure to follow the rules of the road which he brushed off back in high school driver’s education. When he received his insurance bill the month after the accident, Daniel found the cost had risen by a noticeable percent. Proper driver’s education will not only be beneficial to those around you on the road, but also to yourself, as drivers will be less likely to be at fault in an accident, in turn, advantageously saving money. Nationwide, insurance prices have risen by over 20 percent in the last few years, mainly because of failure to abide by the basic rules of the road. Why pay more when large sums of money could be saved by simply taking driver’s education seriously?

If all drivers would adhere to the rules of the road, all drivers would benefit from lower insurance costs and safety for themselves and those around them. Driver’s education should therefore be a high priority and seen as of the utmost importance so as to prevent unnecessary deaths and monetary debts. A common goal of humanity is the search for ways to live longer and collect more money, and a simple way to achieve this goal is to achieve proper driver’s education for all drivers.