An avenue to safer roads.

An avenue to safer roads.

A Car. What is a car? Inception of a car? Car-l Benz. The genius man who devoted his life to the development of such complex, fast and safe vehicles. Henry Ford is the one who made it popular and affordable for the people. A visionary revolutionary who flipped the whole automobile industry with an assembly line that let him produce affordable cars cheaper. Over years, the complexity of cars has been increasing at an exponential rate, it amazes me how different our vision of cars is from their creators`. This complexity, however, also brought along a lot of danger. The complexity of today`s world, infrastructural system and even cars require a lot of knowledge to deal with them safely. 1.35 million people died in 2019 in car accidents, 40 thousands of which, happened on the territory of the US. This shows to me how we should have done a better job educating people how to stay safe. In order to drive a car today, you have to understand the whole “road system”. Hundreds of rules and small nuances which basically describe to us how the whole system has to be working. Even though the system is not flawless, it`s usually people who is the “weak link” in any system. Not properly educated individuals tend to disregard any rules that they find useless or senseless, and this is brings chaos. I believe that any kind of education is important, especially if people`s lives are dependent on it. By spreading the ideas of driving safely and explaining to people why it is so important to follow them, we can save millions of lives.

In my opinion, first steps to reduce the number of deaths and car accidents is to start paying more attention to school and college. Since these two places are where the majority of drivers come from, we need to make sure that teenagers know how the whole system works, before even attempting to drive. By conducting regular driving classes in schools and universities, we can keep the knowledge of rules refreshed and up-to-date. Driving from time to time with a teacher could shape a correct set of values and reflexes that could come really handy in those situations. Also, I believe, it is extremely important to start explaining from a young age why driving under intoxication is so dangerous and how to prevent it.

A good example of irresponsible driving I can recollect from my childhood. My uncle with his family has visited a wedding, and since he was among the only people who didn`t drink, he was forced to give a lift to the newlyweds. Even though he was driving really careful, following all rules, there happened to be a drunk driver who was speeding, due to alcohol, his reaction was slowed and he hit my uncle`s car. As the result, two families lost beloved ones and the drunk driver just ran away. But it is not about whether he was punished, it`s all about preventing those types of situations. There is no punishment that would bring back dead people.

This is why I believe that it is so crucial to spread those messages and ideas and to educate people. One of the first things that I have to do when I sit in a car with my friend is to remind him to fasten the seatbelt. People underestimate the importance of the safety precautions. The one thing that everyone can do help the situation is to be responsible himself and to encourage others doing so. By getting knowledge about safe driving, a person not only becomes a better driver, one also spreads those ideas subconsciously.

To sum up the above said, I must point out that driving education is extremely important in today`s society to stay up-to-date with such a complicated system. People lack knowledge on how to stay safe and well on the roads and to keep others from danger. Some are simply not interested in the wholeness of the system and do not understand how their ignorance can damage others. By spreading these ideas, we can save millions of lives and billions of dollars. My father has taught me driving and he gave me a really valuable advice: “Drive, like everybody around is an idiot.”. This might not be even close to be true and unfair to others, but I think, that if people followed this advice, many deaths would be prevented and even more people could be saved in the future.