Educating teens to be good drivers is a crucial part of public high school education. Driving is an exciting privilege to gain as you grow up, but it is also a big responsibility. Every time you get behind the wheel of a car, you take your life and many others into your hands. I recently took a driver improvement course and one of the takeaways was that driving a car can be like handling a weapon, and drivers should take similar precautions when driving to ensure that no one gets hurt. Most people wouldn’t handle a weapon brazenly and that principle also applies to drivers and their vehicles. In fact, the rules of the road are in place to prevent accidents. Though most students theoretically understand the responsibility they undertake when they receive their driver's license, it is easy to forget how dangerous driving can be once you get behind the wheel alone. Driving aggressively in the name of having “right of way” is a potentially fatal outlook for a new driver. Accidents always seem like they happen to someone else, until they happen to you. I used to drive with a similar perspective until I got pulled over for speeding. The officer who pulled me over asked me what I thought would happen if I got in an accident at 25 miles per hour compared to 40 miles per hour. Prior to this, I had considered that particular road to have a ridiculously low speed limit, but after he posed that question I realized that I was wrong. Going faster equals more damage if you get into an accident and since no one is exempt from that risk, I have driven much more cautiously and with much more respect for traffic rules since that incident.
As an aspiring doctor, I worked in the Emergency Department for almost a year. As is typical for an Emergency Department, we would often receive patients who had been in car accidents. The acuity of these patients varied from seatbelt burns to broken bones and serious trauma. One of the first questions the doctor would ask was how fast the person was traveling at the time of impact. Because of this, I quickly learned that how fast the car is going is a huge factor in the amount of injury caused in a wreck. Many people speed, either because they are not paying attention or because they are in a rush to get where they need to be and this can have fatal consequences if the driver is in the wrong place at the wrong time. This experience, coupled with the lesson I learned from the officer that wrote me the speeding ticket, showed me that higher speed increases risk exponentially while driving.
I personally believe that one of the biggest steps to help reduce deaths related to driving is to emphasize the importance of sleep. Driving tired was likened to driving under the influence in both my driver improvement course and my introductory psychology class. In fact, the “spring forward” day each year sees an increased number of vehicle crashes and experts attribute this to the effects of decreased sleep on the body. When you are feeling sluggish, reaction time decreases and if you are speeding in addition to functioning suboptimally, the damage in an accident can compound very quickly. In my opinion, our society does not prioritize adequate amounts of good quality sleep. There is nothing wrong with going to bed early and getting eight hours of sleep every night. You will be a safer driver as a result. Additionally, if you were to prioritize eight hours of sleep, it would be easier to wake up earlier to ensure adequate time to get to your destination, which would reduce the “need” to speed.
My personal goal to improve the safety of my driving is to pay more attention to the sides of the road. I often find myself a victim of “bumper fixation”. It is easy to zone out when driving, especially on long stretches or in familiar areas, but this can cause accidents due to decreased reaction time. I am trying to improve my scanning technique so that I can be more aware of hazards that exist beside me, especially pedestrians waiting to cross or bicycle and motorcycle riders that may creep up beside my vehicle. In addition to making me a safer driver, this will help others be safer on the road because it will reduce the likelihood of me having to stop short or perform an unexpected maneuver to escape an accident, thus causing a domino effect of risky driving techniques in the drivers around me.
All in all, driving safely demands undivided attention to the road and the activities going on around you. Disobeying road rules, deliberately or not, can lead to accidents that are usually worse when the rate of speed is increased and/or the reaction time is decreased. Drivers should pay attention to the road and make sure they are getting enough sleep to drive safely the next day. The road will be a safer place as a result, which is a goal we should all strive for, but is something that we can only achieve working together.