How to be safe while driving

There are a great many things that lead to motor vehicle deaths. There is use of electronic devices such as cell phones in multiple ways like texting and calls. There is talking with someone in the car that can lead to distraction and ultimately death in some cases. Lack of adequate education and simply ignorance of that education is another huge factor that can lead to motor vehicle death and injury. I will talk about all of these as well as a personal experience that happened to me and my family as well as how these specific reasons can be prevented.

 

Driving education is the first vital step in getting the number of deaths down from driving related accidents. Too many times the education given is not appropriate for the lethality that cars carry if operated inappropriately. A lot of times, the education provided in youth is inadequate to provide sufficient practice for both minors as well as adults to learn enough to provide safety in the car. I taught my own husband how to drive and I made sure that he got the pacifier movie treatment. I took him to an empty lot to learn how to drive. When I was done teaching him, he could do the driving course forward and backward. He knew how to parallel park in any number of instances, and he was taught the importance of making sure not to drive while distracted and to watch others who might be. He was taught defensive driving by my mother as she was the best in the family at it. I made sure he could drive in any situation as well, giving him a lot of practice in the rain and the snow.

 

The first step that should be taken is better education, as we have already talked about is very important. The better we educate people and test that knowledge will make the next steps that we take easier to follow through on. The next big step would be a full overhaul and standardization of the driving to make it much more extensive. I remember mine, and looking back now, I feel like it was a joke. I spent a total of 15 minutes doing the test and all they did was have me drive back roads with no interstate highway practice and have me park in an empty parking lot. I feel that if there is an extensive test that takes at least 30 minutes that includes highway, downtown driving, and one way street driving would be much better. I think that in addition to that there should also be reverse driving and all types of parking testing. I also think that one should have to retake a core set of lessons if there is any accidents that occur that result in injury’s/ or avoidable accident. There can also be hardware that can be installed in every car or phone that prevents the ability of someone to text and drive, thus taking out one of the big things that distract people while they are driving. A gallon of prevention is worth more than any amount of after the fact work.

 

I have been in several accidents that could have been easily prevented by the above lessons. The most recent one is of a lady that forced my father who was driving to T-bone her. Thankfully we were not going very fast at all, but we were still injured. The lady that we ended up hitting did not clear all lanes of traffic before pulling out of a parking lot. There were 3 lanes of traffic she needed to cross, and someone stopped being nice to let her through two lanes of traffic. My father and I were in a turning left lane that had a green arrow, and we did not foresee her coming into traffic and we hit her due to her not clearing each lane individually. She had been on the phone at the time of the incident and had taken fault immediately.  

 

The steps that I can take to be a better and safer driver are actually a few things that I do already do on my own. I make sure that my phone is in a do not disturb mode. I also make sure that when I am around other cars that I watch them as well as where I am going as well as I watch where I am going. I also do not drive if I have had any drinks in my system and I don’t drive if I am tired. Another things that I could do is make sure that my family when they are driving do the same as I feel that these are important steps to safety.