Name: Stephen Akinjide
From: upper marlboro, MARYLAND
Votes: 0
Stephen
Akinjide
10/1/19
Reducing
Driving Deaths
What
steps can be taken to reduce the number of deaths related to driving?
My
name is Stephen Akinjide and I am a teen driver hailed from Upper
Marlboro, in the great State of Maryland. I graduated from Largo High
School on June 2019 and will be attending college in the fall of
2019. I took educational driving classes, written and road tests that
enabled me to gain road test performance to obtain my license in May
2019.
I would like you to remind
yourself the first time you got the key to a car and how you felt.
You were mesmerized and enthusiastic. You were enthralled and knowing
fully well that you will not have to walk or even ride a bus to
school or catch a ride with friends to go anywhere you want to go.
Upon driving the car, you felt that nothing can happen to you and you
were in control, until one day, you ended up in an accident that led
to someone’s death or if you were lucky, you sustained an injury
that will be hard to overcome. This is the reason why I am writing
this essay to bring more awareness to everyone on how to reduce the
number of deaths and accidents on the roads.
It is important to always
pre-planned your travel, check your vehicle for tire pressure, adjust
mirrors, and check wiper blades, brakes, headlights, turning light
signals and more importantly, do not operate a vehicle if you are
tired. Teen accidents mostly occurred from using our cellphone,
drinking while driving, not following the speed limit, and not
concentrating our eyes on the road.
These accidents mostly occurred
from using our cellphone, drinking while driving, not following the
speed limit, and not concentrating our eyes on the road. Driving is a
tedious and complex task that involved concentration and quick
reflect on the road. According to the National Highway Traffic Safety
Administration (2016), it reported that the fatality rate for drivers
age 16 to 19 is four times that of drivers age 25 to 69 years.
Parents should have a family discussion about behavior while driving
because training begins at home. Lack of discipline starts at home
because children see what their parents do and emulate the same
behavior outside. Let local television stations be involved in
advocating road safety and why teen drivers should change behaviors
with incentives like tax breakers. Use local teens and not actors to
dramatize safety as paramount for all teen drivers to follow road
safety rules because when someone is dead she or he cannot back to
life. The number of teen death will continue to grow if solutions to
reduce vehicle accidents are not curtailed using incentives and
dramatizations.
Another idea that will help
reduce accidents on our roads is a collaboration between government
and vehicle manufacturers. Vehicle manufacturers and the government
should collaborate to develop and deploy electronic sensors on the
roads and in vehicles that will track and reduce over speeding. Most
teens speed and lose control of their vehicles that do results in
deaths and injuries. As government-mandated Amtrak and freight,
trains to install sensors on trains and railroad tracks to reduce
accidents so the technology will surely be appropriate for our roads
to reduce accidents.
A cellphone is a contributing
behavioral factor for teens who cannot do without clicking and
texting on their cellphones. Texting on the phone takes teen’s
focus off the road and reduces teen’s ability to respond to a road
hazard, incident, or other obstruction that may be on the road while
driving. Talking on the phone while driving has the same effect. It
is a forgoing conclusion that cellphone use on the road is a high
risk to self and other drivers which may lead to distraction, loss of
control, and eventually collusion or fatal accident. The software
should be design not to allow an individual driving to receive a
phone call or text while on the steering. It should be noted that
teens have less driving experience and driving is a complex task that
involved concentration and alertness at all times. If a cellphone is
disabled while the teen is driving, the possibility of concentrating
will be higher and the driving teen will pay more attention to road
conditions.
The other area that teen drivers
should not allow too many teens in a vehicle. A teen driver is easily
distracted while other teens are talking. The less discussion takes
place while another teen is driving will reduce collisions and avoid
accidents on the road. Teens should have forums in different states
and counties to encourage others to safe driving. The forum will
give teens to discuss their experience because listen to each other
and will help to reduce the rate of accidents among teens on the
roads.
Another area that may reduce
accidents among teens is speeding. When too many teens are in a
vehicle, teens encourage speeding. The forum expatiates experiences
and why teens should follow the speed limit at all times. This also
brings parking and reversing a vehicle. When reversing a vehicle, it
critical to look backward and make sure you can see where you are
reversing to and there is no object or a person at your back. Be
gradual while reversing a vehicle so that you do not be a statistic.
