Drive Safe

It was a Saturday evening, and you were on your way to a friend’s party. You’d been waiting for this moment for months. Eventually, you gathered together the birthday presents and grinned in satisfaction because you knew my best friend Selena is going to absolutely adore them. Despite being a new driver, you felt confident in your driving skills. You felt as though you weren’t required to know the rules about motorcycle driver safety, because you never planned to drive a motorcycle. Red meant to stop, and green was go; what more was there to it? Before you knew it, a random motorcycle swerved past you. Little did you know, the motorcycle actually had the right of way. You swerve off of the road, not sure of the correct decision to make. Sadly, your brand new car collides head first with a tree right off the road; the airbag compartment isn’t able to save you. That was the last breath you took. Shortly after being rushed to the hospital, you are pronounced dead. 

Driver education plays a huge role in reducing driving-related deaths. The more you know, the more you can avoid and then make better decisions. Many people are briefly taught driver education, but it should never be brief.  A huge issue that we face on the road is both the lack of driver knowledge and the unwillingness to apply that knowledge. For example, some know that we aren’t supposed to drive above the speed limit. Others know and just do not care. Unfortunately, this is our sad reality because that mindset puts others in danger. I believe as drivers we should abide by the rules to ensure both our safety and the safety of others on the road. 90 people die in car accidents every day and 3 million people in the U.S. are in car accidents every year. 1 in 7 people do not wear seatbelts; many lives could be saved by just wearing seatbelts. 

Personally, I have been involved in numerous car accidents. One of them has been very memorable; not in a good way. My aunt was driving me and my sister back from a new years’ church service and out of nowhere it began to rain. We were on the highway, and the car soon began to skid. If there were any cars close to us during the time, we would not have made it. The highway is very fast paced and no one is ever slowing down.

There are many laws and safety precautions that could be passed to promote driver safety. Driving laws regulating phone use should be enforced more because talking on the phone can be a huge distraction. Additionally, I believe that the age to begin driving should be 18, rather than 15. I believe this because many teenagers are not prepared for driving.  Also, schools can also incorporate these safety measures. Schools can enforce more driver education into schools; it could even be offered as a course.  

Personally, there are many ways I contribute to driver safety. I encourage my friends to practice safe driving. In order to be a safer driver, I constantly read over the driver manuals because they are new every year. I make sure that I and all my passengers are wearing seatbelts. I adjust all my mirrors and make sure that I never go above the speed limit. Lastly,  I avoid texting and driving and other simple distractions such as cosmetic issues and etc.