Behind the Wheels, in the Driver's Seat: What Actually Keeps Us Safe

I did not know this until researching this essay and it made me stop in my tracks. I have been driving since I was nineteen years old and had never once stopped to consider the roads I travel daily in this light. Driving seems mundane and possibly even boring. In fact, it is probably the least dramatic part of any American's day, which may be the very reason it is so dangerous. No one gets into a car to go to work or the grocery store planning to engage in what may well be the most dangerous part of their week. Statistically, it is!

 

It is possible to find the details of that story in a statistic, of course, but there are many more accidents than the data can ever record. This was my story, and I learned it on a four way intersection, the sort that everyone takes for granted until there is reason not to. Both of us were new drivers, and somewhere within that intersection, we made the same tiny mistake about what the other would do next, one of those assumptions that new drivers make because there is no experience yet to know how things really play out on the road. It was not a case of recklessness. It was simply that we were both new enough that we misread the same moment at the same time. We both knew there had been an accident before it even started happening.

 

For a while, I stopped driving altogether, opting instead for taxi service. In hindsight, of course, that wasn't convenience, it was avoidance. Avoidance of four way intersections for the rest of my life is a solution that was never going to fly. When I finally confronted it head on, I found that nothing had changed. For a very long time after that, my foot hit the brakes at every four way intersection by reflex even when I was clearly entitled to go and there was nothing unusual on the road. Driving had, pre-accident, been supported by a psychological safety net that I hadn't needed to think about and that had simply vanished with the crash. For a while, it took rebuilding that net one intersection at a time. And it took longer than expected to overcome the instinctive response at a green light.

 

Now that some time has passed since that incident, I can say that the mistake we made that night in that intersection was not the result of mere bad luck. Two relatively new drivers with insufficient practical experience trying to understand each other's intentions is something that comes up in virtually every stat on teen and new drivers crashes. Ten years behind the wheel mean ten years of experience and a collection of mental images that has been formed in the subconscious without you even knowing it. These include near misses, a car that hangs back just a little bit too long at the stop sign, a driver who starts drifting just a little before turning to another lane. And when something actually goes wrong, a relatively experienced driver will know how to react and how to get out of the situation because he or she has seen similar situations multiple times. A new driver won't have the experience. He or she will be reacting to the situation for the first time and in real-time, with no margin for error. And that is precisely the gap that driver education is supposed to fill.

 

The evidence of the positive effects of phased introduction of nighttime driving, highway driving, and passengers through the graduated licensing programs, where the goal is precisely to reduce the negative consequences associated with inexperience, is the real reduction of crashes among teenagers who obtained their license in states with such legislation. Personally, I am an example of that fact since driver's education course and license are not enough to make me an experienced driver; some experience comes with practice, including mistakes.

 

However, driver education is far from the only solution to the problem of inexperienced drivers causing fatal accidents. For many years, my work is related to the development of power systems. In this field, I am used to think about safety as about layers i.e., failure of any one measure should not make the difference between ordinary life and disaster. In the context of traffic, such layers of safety include good lighting and signs that help to avoid mistakes, rumble strips and roundabouts that prevent from driving out of lanes, seat-belts and airbags to protect passengers in case of accident, and finally automatic emergency braking and lane departure warnings. The fatalities that do occur are more likely to be found in one particular layer that cannot easily be engineered around: human behavior. Driven while distracted, driven while impaired, and driven too quickly do not reflect equipment failures. These are decisions made frequently enough that they appear as trends rather than instances of personal misfortune. This is why the best actions taken will involve engineering and enforcement and culture together: legislation regarding cellphone usage and impairment which is actually being enforced, ride-sharing and public transportation that truly act as alternatives to impaired driving, and ongoing efforts to design safer roads which take into account that driver errors will occur.

 

It does little good if this does not affect my actual behaviors as a driver, so this is how I drive now. I hide my phone somewhere I cannot reach it when the car is in motion, and it's not sitting beside me, ready to cause problems with one glance. I put on my seat belt each and every time, including when driving for the mere three minutes to the grocery store, because the majority of deadly accidents occur closer to home than people realize. I try to assume the worst when driving; however, not because I think everyone else is a menace on the road, but rather because I lose nothing by doing so and being wrong even once will be expensive. Helping others to become safer drivers is difficult, as no one likes to be taught how to drive. Lecturing does not work with the people I know; therefore, helping them to become safe drivers means volunteering to be the designated driver before anyone asks, making a comment on the spot about picking up a phone while waiting for the green light, and being ready to be the person who does not drink tonight.

 

I began this essay with a statistic that shocked me, and I wish to conclude it with that which is far more relevant; most of that statistic is avoidable. Traffic accidents are discussed as if they are the equivalent of weather and something that simply occurs to someone. My accident was not something that occurred to me; it occurred because two inexperienced drivers took an assumption within an intersection, the very assumption that driver education is intended to fill and the very assumption that I am currently closing in my own way. I cannot control what others on the road decide to do, but I can decide for myself and be that sort of driver and human on road that makes it a bit easier for others along the way to make the right decision.