Gearing Up For Safety

For many teens earning the right to drive can be extremely liberating. Driving is freedom to go anywhere they want without adhering to their parent or guardian’s schedule. Being able to flash off their new ride to friends and take them with them to fun destinations. Even being seen as more responsible and gaining other privileges like an extended curfew. For teens, driving is usually promoted as a fun new right they gain access to that lets them do as they please. What is rarely pushed about driving however is the accountability and risk that comes along with it. Not as many cars would be sold if car commercials got realistic about how 227,000 of teen driving experiences go every year.

The fact is, for teens driver safety is often disregarded as the overly anxious nit-picking of their parents. Many people in general think of themselves as not possibly liable for a car accident, with this being even more true for young-adults who feel that they are untouchable from any real harm. Unfortunately, this is not the case, with 16 and 17 year-olds having the highest rates for car accidents, with 18 and 19 year-olds following close behind. A big reason for this is that younger drivers are more willing to take reckless risk when driving than those with more experience and development mentally. This willingness could stem from a number of factors such as overconfidence in their abilities, misjudgements, or influence from other teens who survive their reckless driving habits. The best way to drive the number of teens driven towards reckless driving seems to be education on driver safety, showing real life accidents and drilling that a accident could happen to anyone, no matter how experienced, and pushing how an accident can be the difference between life and death for more than just the driver but other innocents as well.

Drivers training has a strong impact on preventing accidents as driving technology improves as time goes on. As car continue to be pampered with more and more features to keep those inside and outside of the car safe, drivers training adapts to include these newer features into the learning so that potential drivers of the now are aware how to properly make use of the newest safety technology for cars. In addition to the cars, the roads themselves are seeing improvements, which are also being taught in drivers training. While I can’t speak for everyone, my city has recently installed more roundabouts throughout, and many drivers seem to not fully grasp the concept, as I’ve seen wild moves made on roundabouts such as stopping in the circle for other cars to come into the circle, turing into others’ lanes in the turnabout and even straight up ignoring the street signs and making illegal turns on the roundabout, all the while honking and cursing others out as if they had did something wrong. Training takes on newer driving infrastructure and helps to prevent confusion on them preventing accidents.

Education on driver safety is ultimately useless however if teens don’t see a need to apply it to their lives. For many, simply being told that reckless driving can lead to accidents won’t be taken as a warning but a challenge. In order to combat this, driver education classes could perhaps show more accidents and the damage done to the passengers, cars, and the other negative consequences. This would probably be most impactful if the victims were to be within the 16-19 age range as to show that even the young are capable of getting into accidents. While this could be considered a bit much for some, preventing others from making the same choices seems to be worth it. Taking drivers education seriously can teach potential drivers how to prevent accidents that may or may not be their fault, saving lives. By being able to identify the proper way to handle the various situations that can happen on the road, teens will be better prepared to take on the road and highlight the reckless driving of other drivers.

To reduce the numbers of deaths related to driving, distracted driving of all forms should be discouraged. Quite often driving while texting is pushed as the only form of distracted driving. In reality distracted driving comes in many forms. A driver who is overly involved in the antics of its passengers. A person behind the wheel who increases their speed when angered by a phone call. Or even just someone who allows road rage from another driver to dictate their driving for the rest of their route. Because the media so often pushes one singular story behind distracted driving, we rarely see any efforts put towards the dangers of other distractions while driving. Due to this people ignore the danger and find themselves in accidents that could have been prevented if more attention was given to the conditions of the road.