Car crashes, accidents, and even fatalities, can happen no matter how short the drive is. Learning and acknowledging the importance of driving safely and efficiently could ultimately save your life on the road. Speaking on behalf of my personal experiences, I want to voice how important driver education can be.
Driver education is essentially the base to your driving. It is the skillset you have to protect yourself and others on the road. Being an individual that has been in two car accidents within the past two years, both being caused by other individuals, I am a big advocate for driver education. If you are an educated driver, you can significantly decrease the number of deaths on the road. Even the little things like using your turn signals, and fully yielding / stopping at the appropriate signs could prevent fatalities.
Let’s speak more on the “little things”. Fully stopping at a stop sign; If the driver that hit me would have done this, the accident wouldn’t have occurred. I was less than 2 minuets into my drive when this happened. I don’t necessarily see “steps” to reduce the number of deaths related to driving, but I do see one key factor. That would simply be to follow the law. Daily drivers break the law, almost every drive they take. Looking at my accident, a stop sign was run and an accident occurred. If the vehicle speeds were higher when this occurred, a fatality very well could have happened. Simply following the laws set in place could reduce the number of deaths on the road.
As mentioned above, I have been in multiple car accidents. None of these were major accidents, which I am so thankful for, but I want to bring awareness to every accident that occurs. You should always be the first one to speak up to your friends and family when you see them driving irresponsibly. There have been multiple situations I have been in, being in the car with my friends behind the wheel, where phone activity was at a high. I will be the first one to speak up on phone usage when behind the wheel of a vehicle. I have known multiple individuals that have killed others around them due to phone activity. I truly believe you can help become part of the change if you push those around you to follow the law set in place when driving.
Speaking to becoming the change, here are a few steps I think you could take to becoming a better and safer driver. First, you yourself must be willing to cut out any bad habits when it comes to behind the wheel. Whether that is putting down your phone, or driving with both hands even, your full attention must be on the road at all times. Secondly, you have to embrace all changes to those around you. You must be willing to correct bad driving behavior of those around (both friends and family). Last but not least, you have to simply follow the law. You cannot expect good outcomes when you are speeding, rolling through stop signs, not using turn signals, or even as simple as looking both ways before crossing an intersection. These three steps I have listed are more than capable of keeping yourself, as well as those around you, safe on the road.
In order to push the importance of driver education, it all starts with one thing which is you. It takes a village to make a change, but the easiest way to start is embracing that change within yours. We could make astronomical changes within the driver education community if we pushed it like networking. You know in order to grow your skillset and get better opportunities, you have to network with those around you. This will eventually expand out more and more as you continue networking. If we were all to do this will drivers education, as well as safe driving techniques, we could gain a tremendous amount of ground in a fairly short amount of time.
With everything stated above, it is important for me to state that accidents cannot be stopped completely but can be prevented with the correct education and training on the matter. You have to advocate to others the importance of safety behind the wheel of a vehicle and be willing to implement those skills and laws into your daily driving. Accidents can occur at any point of your drive. Taking the time to learn the importance of drivers education can save your life, and those around you.