A Call To Action

There is no light way to discuss driver safety anymore. I will not lightly cajole you and your friends to buckle up, I will not suggest that you put your phone away, I will not stand and say nothing while I am bombarded day after day with the news of those too young to die having their lives taken in a second. I am done asking. I write today pleading with my fellow students to consider their lives and the lives of others on the road.

While many schools do not have drivers ed, I will first talk to those students who do. Those who have it sit in the class and take the information as something unimportant that doesn’t apply to you or your friends. There is one fact you cannot argue against, and it is that a confident driver is a safer driver. Whether you like it or not, the confidence you have on the road increases by a considerable margin after you take a drivers ed course. If your school does not offer you a course on driver safety, there are still ways to receive the same education online. There is no excuse.

No matter what, we will never be able to bring the number of driving related deaths per year down to zero, but if education on driving is more accessible, we can certainly bring it down more. The most common instance that I am informed with is hearing about someone on their phone while driving. This is an action that I have no sympathy for other than those who you hurt by taking part in something so unimportant. If you truly believe that you are immune to any form of accident as a result, I feel sorry for you. Almost every time I hear of an accident where someone was able to walk away, it was because they were wearing a seatbelt, and without it would have been shot through their windshield only to be found 20 feet from their car.

Teenagers tend to have a God complex, they believe it won’t be them or any of their friends. When one of my brother’s best friends died in a car accident my mother and I had to decide whether or not to wake him up that night or wait until morning to inform him of what had happened. This was two days after Christmas. Your parents do not deserve to have a police officer knock on your door at 11 p.m. to tell them that their child has perished without a chance to say goodbye.

There are so many actions you can take to be safe, and everybody knows of them. Resist the urge to believe that it will all work out on the road and no matter what you will be fine. I am begging you to inform yourself on how to be safe, to put your phone away, to put on your seatbelt, and know that you are by no means invincible.