Dangerous Driving: Saving Lives Through Education

Informing the drivers in our country or really anywhere about the consequences of unsafe driving and showing them the reality of what happens would impact most drivers positively. For me, the simple awareness had an impact on me I will forever be grateful for. As a driver, I feel I have an impact on my safety and, to some extent, the safety of others too! There have been many instances while driving that have been close to a crash, due to another car, but because of my awareness on the road I was able to prevent anything from happening.

I, luckily, have not been in a car crash, but I have heard stories from friends and family of the dire consequences of distracted driving. A close neighbor to me was biking one day and, because the other car was distracted, was hit. Sadly, he passed away because of this incident. He was still young, healthy, and had a young family. Something seemingly too simple like not texting and driving could save a life, if not more.

This story still aches my heart, but there is good that comes from it. Because of this story I personally have taken the initiative to never text and drive and try to be the best driver that I can be. Others have also done the same. My neighbors, family, and I have seen the sad but real consequences of distracted driving and this has impacted each of us forever.

On occasion, I will see a friend texting and driving or being distracted for some reason. Knowing what I know, I offer to text for them or help them with whatever they see as necessary to do while driving. A simple question of “can I do that for you?” is a way both I and anyone as a passenger can help drivers pay more attention to the road instead of other things.

For one of my college classes, I needed to create a survey and analyze it. The topic I chose had to do with the newest safety features on cars such as auto-braking or lane-keep assist. I know a lot of features have been added to the newer cars and I wanted to see if they were actually helpful to the everyday consumer. Many of the people stated that because their car has so many different alerts from these features, they often don’t know what it is trying to tell them. It confuses and distracts them instead of informing them of danger, which is their intended purpose. Yes, many of these newer safety features are helpful in a crash but they are not as helpful when it comes to preventing the crash from happening in the first place. Owners of these new cars should be informed prior to use of what features it has and how it notifies them. This would solve parts of this problem and bring the most use to these safety features.

Safety is extremely important, so it makes sense that the more safety features you have, the safer you are, but this is not always the case. Another result that came from my study is that the everyday person using these newer features becomes dependent on them, ultimately making them less visualant and more distracted on other things. Finding the right balance between what safety features to have and which ones to disclude would ultimately be a big step forward in preventing car crashes and saving lives.

Using all of what I have experienced and found, the problem of distracted driving is very prevalent in our world and community today. It is important that each of us do our own part to be educated consumers and know the risks of dangerous or distracted driving. It would be nice if everyone understood the risks and decided to drive safely but this is not a realistic situation, yet. People will still decide for themselves what they are willing to risk. I, personally, am unwilling to sacrifice the possibility of death for myself or others for a simple text or getting to my destination faster. I believe that deciding for ourselves is important. It is definitely a right each of us have and should be used how they please. We ultimately have the freedom to choose, however knowing the facts would hopefully guide people to make logical choices about what kind of cars they get as well as how they drive on the road. Whatever the people decide, we can try with our best efforts to educate the public about driving and the possible consequences of driving dangerously.