Everybody was a little kid at one point or another sitting in the back seat of your mom or dads car, bored just looking out the window wondering and being excited about what It would be like to drive a car when you grow up. Going fast and feeling the wind on your face pass by while pretending to be like your parent and having the responsibility of driving not caring or even thinking about the implication that come with driving a 1-3 ton vehicle burrowing down the road with enough kinetic energy to kill a human being at the moment of impact or even yourself. So when everyone grows up going from booster to back seat, from back seat to front seat and eventually from front seat to driver's seat at the age of 16 excited and sometimes unaware or ignoring the dangers that come with the action of driving a motor vehicle. According to studies, there are 12.8 deaths per 100,000 people per year which makes drivers being educated on road safety imperative to protect themselves and the ones around them driving or not.
Today in the state of Kentucky where I live, at the age of 16 a person can obtain a driver's permit with a parents signature, after 60 hours of practice (10 of which needs to be at night) and a drivers test later one can obtain a driver's license which doesn't need to be renewed for the next 4-8 years. From there all one has to do is have a proof of residency and pay a 20 dollar renewal fee. A step that could be taken to improve the safety of drivers is to add a step in the renewal steps by making drivers go through a course to re-educate them on legal practices that one may have forgotten within those 4-8 years. Another step that could be added is ways to spot distracted drivers such as cameras at stop lights or well placed police officers to specifically keep their eyes out for distracted drivers.
Back in 2023 during the beginning of my sophomore year of college, I was driving early in the morning to class with regular stop and go traffic. As I was heading down the road I came up to a 4 way intersection for which I had a green light and the right away. As I came into the intersection out of the corner of my eyes I noticed a toyota sienna flying through the red light straight towards me. I swerved at the last second but it was too late. The person Smashed into my side and flipped my Honda Pilot straight onto its side. Coins, papers, my backpack and everything I had on me at the time fell to the ground of the busted passenger side window. Luckily I wasn't hurt or anyone else in the crash which consisted of a mother and two daughters. Bystanders came to help and pull me out of the car. Funny enough I was still able to make it to class and tell my friend that before I came in to learn calculus two I got into a flip over accident. The woman never told me why or how she ran through the red light but I assumed she was dealing with either one of the daughters or texting. Nevertheless she was distracted and had no attention to the road ahead of her and could have seriously hurt me.
Some of the steps I can take to be a better and safer driver is to always be buckled, check my blind spots and use my turn signal whenever it’s needed and never look at the notification I receive on my phone until my car is in park. I could also ask any passengers to buckle up and not distract me when I’m driving. Another way that I could become a safer driver is to maintain my vehicle by taking it through regular maintenance by changing the oil and checking all other fluids, checking for leaks and cracking on anything important. I could get tire rotation, wheel balancing and alignments as well as make sure the parts of my suspension are all correct and not broken or periodically breaking. I could walk around my car and make sure all my lights are working from headlight, high beams, turn signals and fog lights. Besides just being attentive on the road, having an understanding and being attentive on important parts of my vehicle can protect myself and the people around me.