I’m Talking with the Man in the Mirror

Ariel
Escobar

Youth
Forward

Round
1

30
Mar 2020

I’m
Talking with the Man in the Mirror

As
a society, we’ve been conditioned to think a wildly speeding car
belongs to a young boy who craves the feel of freedom. What we don’t
realize is that this car could very well be driven by a well-meaning
American who has driven for decades. 

Our
community suffers from a lack of education in this respect, as a
proper understanding of the road could save the lives of many
thousands. The knowledge required to earn a driver’s license is
valid, but the teaching method is laughable. Being a teenager, I bore
witness to many instances of speeding through the DATA course and
waiting for the timer to end, myself included. If there’s a method
available which would allow us to engage with the material, such as
Drivers ed in high school, then both drivers and passengers
would retain the knowledge necessary to be safe on the road. If
classes could be made more available in schools and the general
public, then I know people would be inclined to really learn what it
means to be a safe driver.

Being
knowledgeable is absolutely a key factor in decreasing the deaths
seen by motor accidents. However, another factor lies within the
correction system in place for traffic violations. Through
psychological study, it’s been discovered that punishment is less
effective than reward in regards to modifying behaviors¹.
This trend is demonstrated in a study of speeders in Maryland, which
returned results showing drivers who received a speeding ticket were
almost twice as likely to receive another in subsequent months as
opposed to drivers who received no citations².
Another tidbit to consider is that most speeders admit to doing so
intentionally³.
With these in mind, it’s considerably obvious that speeding, among
other violations, cannot be discouraged by punishment, and should
instead be discouraged by promotion of good traffic behavior. Perhaps
this can be executed similarly to safe-driving bonuses, where good
traffic behaviors can be tracked by a company or by the car, and
drivers can be rewarded for their diligence.

In
any case, reckless drivers can be found everywhere. My father drove
his first vehicle when he was ten, and until he arrived in the United
States at twenty-six, he’d never received any driving education. To
this day, he fails to stop at signs, doesn’t use his signals,
consistently drives over the speed limit, the list continues. I
intrinsically know the behaviors he exhibits–and those I’ve picked
up as a result–are irresponsible, and since I’ve earned my
driver’s license, I’ve tried to correct those actions to become a
safer driver. I think progress is being made, though behaviors such
as these are tough habits to break. Perhaps I can invest some time in
an engaging Drivers ed course, or implement a reward
strategy of my own. After all, the road to being a safe driver is one
that can be taken by anyone, as long as they’re willing to make an
effort for the sake of themselves, their passengers, and their
neighbors.

Works
Cited

Alonso,
Fransisco, et al. “ Speed and Road Accidents: Behaviors, Motives,
and Assessment of the Effectiveness of Penalties for
Speeding.” American
Journal of Applied Psychology,
vol. 1, no. 10, 2013, pp. 58–64., doi:10.12691/ajap-1-3-5.

Lawpoolsri,
Saranath, et al. “Do Speeding Tickets Reduce the Likelihood of
Receiving Subsequent Speeding Tickets? A Longitudinal Study of
Speeding Violators in Maryland.” Traffic
Injury Prevention,
U.S. National Library of Medicine, Mar. 2007,
www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17366333.

Lee,
Amy. “Speeding.” NHTSA,
US Department of Transportation, 12 Dec. 2019,
www.nhtsa.gov/risky-driving/speeding.

“Scholarship.” DmvEdu.org,
DMVedu.org, www.dmvedu.org/scholarship/.

Wagner,
I. “Total Number of Licensed Drivers in the U.S. – by State
2018.” Statista,
N.p., 26 Feb. 2020,
www.statista.com/statistics/198029/total-number-of-us-licensed-drivers-by-state/.

Wächter,
Tobias, et al. “Differential Effect of Reward and Punishment on
Procedural Learning.” The
Journal of Neuroscience : the Official Journal of the Society for
Neuroscience,
Society for Neuroscience, 14 Jan. 2009,
www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2765863/.