I have never been in a car accident which I count myself lucky for. After considering how dangerous driving is and how life-altering the effects of negligent driving are, I wondered and researched what practices would lower the death rate due to automobile accidents. The main suggestions that I found were surprisingly simple and easy to do. These included wearing a seat belt, staying off cell phones, eliminating distractions, never getting behind the wheel impaired, driving at safe speeds, as well as staying vigilant. The most difficult of the suggestions was taking a driver’s education class. These classes can be extremely expensive, but according to a study at the University of Nebraska–Lincoln drivers who do not take a driver’s education class are 24 percent more likely to be in a fatality or injury accident. A combination of all of these precautions is the best way to lessen the number of deaths due to automobile accidents. Now I know that we cannot control others and their negligent driving can have a negative effect on us, but we need to lead by example. If we are doing our best to drive safely then we are already lessening the risk of being involved in a collision.
I have grown up next to a highway where the speed limit is 55 miles per hour but everyone drives upwards of 75 miles per hour. As one can imagine, there are multiple fatal accidents within one mile of my home every year. Every day I have to cross both lanes of traffic multiple times a day to go into town. As a new driver, this was extremely stressful and any time I would have to cross I would become filled with anxiety. This anxiety was increased by the knowledge that a couple of years earlier one of my friends was turning off of the highway and someone t-boned her going over 60 miles an hour. She, by some miracle, was able to walk away from an accident that she should not have survived. The increased speeds as well as distracted driving are the causes of the majority of the accidents that occur near my home and presumably most automobile accidents in the world. Two days after finding this scholarship, one of my friends and I were leaving work and as we were turning onto the same highway he was t-boned. He had been following me in his car and as he was turning another car blew a red light and ran straight into him. The other driver hadn't been paying attention and completely missed her light. Once again, he was lucky enough to leave the incident without a scratch. Unfortunately, the same could not be said about his truck. It is awakening when you realize that almost all accidents are easily preventable. Giving just a little extra space between cars or putting your phone in the back seat, as simple as they are, could save many people extreme heartache as well as even save someone’s life.
One habit that I learned in my driver’s education course was to set my music before I take the car out of park, as well as to place my phone in a location where I am not even tempted to touch it. It is habits like these that I want to readopt. I forgot how simple some precautions are, but how vast the impact not making these precautions can have. It can be easy to become comfortable with driving and become too relaxed. These are the moments of our greatest weakness and our greatest risk. I want to instill a little bit of that healthy fear that I have received into the people I love so I can keep them safe while they are on the roads. I believe that a driver without a small, healthy amount of fear is a danger. They are a danger to themselves as well as anyone near them. It’s that small amount of fear that keeps good drivers alert and causes them to make more of an effort to not only keep themselves safe but their passengers and other drivers around them. The driver’s education course I took seems to have a goal to make sure their students fully understand the consequences of making poor decisions while behind the wheel. We need to understand that the price to drive safely is low, but the cost for not doing so is high. The best way that we can keep our friends, families, and other loved ones safe is by readopting the simple yet impactful habits taught in driver’s education and urging them to adopt those habits as well. Complacency when behind the wheel can cause harm that may never heal.