Addressing Causes of a Perennial Vehicular Epidemic

Cars are not toys. They are heavy and powerful when in motion, but they are also difficult for many people to maneuver, especially when people first begin driving. There’s a reason why many vehicle rental companies charge higher rates to drivers under age 22 than to other drivers. Young drivers statistically get into vehicular accidents more frequently.

My high school offered drivers education classes as one half of our physical education class during sophomore year. Sadly, our physical education/driver’s education teacher expressed remorse when she disclosed to us how personally she took the news that one of her former students had died in a car accident. Understandably, she taught our class with utmost seriousness.

The number of driver deaths hitting a low point in 2011 still featured over 30,000 deaths – not accidents, deaths. As our nation’s population grows constantly, the task of driving responsibly becomes both more difficult and more important. This challenge must be met with more intensive education regarding both state & federal laws as well as general driving techniques and mechanics. Streets get more crowded with more vehicles on the road, resulting in many people driving faster to avoid “falling behind” and roads bottlenecking. The roads themselves become dilapidated, and, if they are underfunded, stay that way. These dynamics all conflate to exacerbate the need to invest in alternative forms of transportation, better national infrastructure, and more thorough education for driving courses.

Another step that I would recommend reducing the number of deaths would be to revamp speeding laws so that vehicles would be compelled (socially and legally) to take the speed limit more seriously. Essentially, raise the speed limit to a level even considered acceptable by law enforcement agencies but also emphasize that drivers will be held accountable if they exceed the limits even by a slim margin (say, over 5 miles per hour).

The raised speed limits people are more likely to consider reasonable and acclimated to a rising population, but the standards for speeding would be much stricter. What exists today in the United States is that speed limits are ignored with such regularity instead of ignored with such regularity that even law enforcement only rarely stops “speeders” in terms of proportion to overall number of those violating the currently established limits. One thing I take pride in as a driver is driving at approximately the speed limit (Illinois driver’s manual instructs to drive at least the speed limit) but I stay very close. In that regard, I am confidently a safe driver.

I myself have been in three car accidents, admittedly. The first was soon after I learned how to drive a car. I accidentally drove forward (instead of in reverse as I intended) when I was already in a parking spot. The second time was when I was entering a turning lane and a car full of teenagers attempted to drive horizontally across the road and enter the lane before me, resultantly crashing into me in a “T-bone” shape. The third time I was driving in snowy weather, mistakenly did not use the wheel locks in my mom’s car, and subsequently lost control in the middle of a primary street when my car began to fishtail. Another car eventually crashed into me. In particular, I am not proud of either my first or third crashes, but I learned a lot from them.

I have honestly used my phone while driving to direct myself using the GPS. My mom tends to eat while she drives whenever she has made multiple stops during the day without having yet eaten. Sometimes, she takes U-turns in areas that are not explicitly authorized for U-turns.

I believe both my mom and myself can become better drivers through our application of more disciplined driving. To allow ourselves to be less often distracted by our surroundings. To establish my GPS destination (and any music, when applicable) before beginning to drive. I do my best not to eat in the car in general, but I think I can persuade her to eat less also especially while driving. In terms of the laws, reviewing the Illinois’s driver’s manual is always a smart move. Initiatives can be made to print and distribute more materials for my local college (College of DuPage) and other community resources. The university’s student trustee debates just occurred at my school and another election for the state is happening this November. Both settings are ideal to call for or make my own suggestions to candidates as to help spread both general knowledge on how to drive more safely as well as how to spread awareness for the need to continually adjust our legal driving standards to accommodate a growing population.

We need to fund our public infrastructure and that includes promoting public transportation. More dispersion of people taking various forms of mass transit instead of people clustering on the roads more than necessary is more than ideal: this strategy shares a common goal with the adaptation of our society to become more environmentally sustainable, another issue that, if unaddressed, will result in exacerbated driving issues in the near future as a side-effect of a much broader, worldwide climate calamity.