Car accidents are scary and sometimes deadly life altering events. I, like seventy percent of Americans, have been in at least one car accident. Thankfully I wasn’t seriously injured and none of them were my fault; furthermore, I wasn’t on my phone or under the influence. All my car accidents occurred on the freeway, but somehow I was never scared to drive on the freeway. My first accident was at the age of seventeen while taking my aunt to her doctor’s appointment. Thankfully we were in stop and go traffic and the man behind me just wasn’t paying attention, so it was a slight fender bender. The much worse accident was while my husband was driving and we were merging from one freeway to another in lovely Sacramento, CA traffic. One car came flying from the other freeway and didn’t realize our freeway traffic was going much slower than the other freeway and barreled into us. Her car looked like an accordion after hitting our truck and the truck behind her hit her.
Driver education is important in teaching the basics of the roadways, but it also teaches the dangers and penalties of breaking the laws, which can reduce the number of deaths while driving. I think we can also do this by having teenagers and young adults seeing the firsthand damage of car accidents. This can happen by having them spend a Friday or Saturday evening observing in a local trauma emergency department or doing a ride along with a local ambulance. Seeing car accident victims with your own eyes gives these young adults more compassion and understanding of the reality that there are consequences for their actions. Seeing it on TV or doing a reenactment just isn’t that same. Being able to see the severity of the injuries, seeing the family crying and screaming in the visitor room after you pronounce their loved one dead, and watching them say their last goodbyes. Working at a local trauma ER unit or on a local ambulance just makes it hit that much closer to home because it could be your friend, family member, or neighbor, or it could be someone you know behind the wheel texting or drinking and driving. Hopefully, these observations will help young adults make the connection that they aren’t just hurting themselves, they are hurting a friend of a friend.
These victims I speak of above, I’ve personally seen in the ER. I’ve also seen the alleged criminals behind bars, which is why I get so irritated when my husband is on his phone when he drives. I tell him to give it to me and I will do it, or I ask him why it can’t wait till we get there? That should be everyone’s slogan: “It can wait” because it’s not worth your life or your passengers’ lives. Everyone thinks it can’t happen to them, but I’m here to tell you that it can. I’ve seen it; the person that died in the ER and the woman behind bars for manslaughter because she was texting. It’s all true and I bet you they said the same thing: “It won’t happen to me.” As far as drinking and driving, there really should be stricter enforcement and punishment. I’ve seen many people driving under the influence that get pulled over and don’t get a ticket or taken to jail; they get to have someone come pick them up. It’s all fine and dandy until someone gets hurt and that’s the problem with our society. But there should be no excuse with the popularity of Uber and Lyft.
Some things that I would like to see done or implemented would be to see MADD get more support from local governments and put a code on their website to pay for a trip home or develop their own rideshare for Friday and Saturday evenings (or whenever drunk driving is at its peak). I would like to see bartenders take keys away or make their customers pay upfront for a rideshare. The way I look at it is if you can pay for your drinks, then you can pay for your rideshare. Just because you are not legally drunk 0.08% doesn’t mean you are safe to drive anyway. Buzzed driving will cause delayed reaction times as well. Looking at statistics, we are the third WORST when it comes to fatal DUI crashes. What if we talk about lower blood alcohol level to 0.05%? I’m sure if we look at these statistics, the higher the “allowable” blood alcohol level for driving the higher the fatal crashes and likewise, the lower the “allowable” blood alcohol level for driving the lower the fatal crashes. There are still so many things we can do as a country to make our streets safer.