Name: Nicholas William Tebay
From: Rio Rancho, New Mexico
Votes: 0
Driving
Safely
Nearly
1.25 million people die in car crashes each year; which means 3,287
people die every day in a car crash. With such a considerable average
of deadly crashes daily I want to understand the reason for such an
absurdly large number of fatal wrecks. There are many moving parts to
finding a reason for such a high mortality rate: many factors do not
take place during the final moments in a crash but yet farther back
to when the driver was first learning to drive or even nasty habits
the driver picked up in their years of driving experience.
There
is a lot of uncertainty when it comes to driving. A study shows that
in 2016 10,497 people died drinking and driving and in 2018 4,637
people died texting while driving. It is always important to
constantly focus while on the road to avoid any oncoming obstacles
that may not have been seen if you were driving while distracted.
Something that a lot of people don’t think about when they are
driving is the importance of turning signals; the majority of crashes
happen because they don’t see the other car coming. Now depending on
the circumstances, it may not always stop a crash but making yourself
more noticeable to all the cars around you could save your life or
the life of others.
Something
always to take into account before you start driving is the weather.
When I had an accident, bad weather played a role. The weather is no
joke. After picking up a friend to go to the mall, I wanted to show
him how fast my car could go. This was of course driving recklessly,
and while we were driving, there was a large rainstorm that picked up
and picked up fast. Now this was during rush hour so there was
bumper to bumper traffic and while going down a hill everyone was
starting to slow down to stop for the light. I noticed this too late
and when I went to slam on the breaks I completely slid and smashed
into the bumper of a pickup truck. Now luckily no one was seriously
injured but in an environment with a higher speed limit, I might not
have been so lucky and could have been seriously injured or even have
died. So when driving, always consider the weather conditions because
it is very important to take them into account. It can turn a drive
into a serious accident.
If
there is one thing I can end off with and what I believe to be a base
rule for driving safely and avoiding serious or fatal accidents is to
be 100% aware while you are driving. I find that this one rule can be
helpful in a lot of cases. While you are driving, I suggest that you
ask yourself “is 100% of my attention on the road” no matter what
you are doing in the car and if you aren’t, you can correct that
mistake and save your life and others from a deadly crash.
