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My dad has been a police officer since 2008. His work focuses on traffic violations, and he has extensive knowledge of motor vehicle laws. He brings home stories of stupid people, or stories of unlucky people, the victims of distracted driving. I never realized how easy it was to become distracted while driving until I was the one behind the wheel. I've done stupid and I've done ignorant, and those states of driving tend to lead people into ditches, combines, culverts, bridges, other people... the list, sadly, goes on.
I've made mistakes behind the wheel, and I can honestly say only God's divine intervention has preserved my life. My dad surveyed a scene when I had gone off the road, and he identified at least seven ways in which I had almost died, and three ways in which I could've ended the life of another human. In short, it's safe to say this subject hits close to home.
I'm a strong advocate for alert driving, as my life has been affected by plain bad driving. One of my friends flipped his car driving home in a snowstorm, my sister blew her engine during a back-roads car race, my best friend found himself driving in the wrong lane, towards oncoming traffic. This stuff is real, it's prevalent, and it kills. All my friends and family, including myself, have survived our driving errors, each without so much as a scratch. Most of us shouldn't have, and my dad can testify to that.
"Complacency is a killer." This is a lesson I took too long to learn, taught to me by my father. He learned this on the job. Here in Iowa, winters can be unpredictably dangerous. One of the reasons for that is the unpredictable weather. Another reason is the very predictable factor of human error.
Ignorance plays a major role in the death count by motor vehicles. The average driver doesn't understand just how small of a distraction can shake the foundations of someone's world. Most people don't even know that eating while driving is considered distracted driving, and for good reason! See, if you don't classify an extra activity while driving as a distracting activity, you'll have no reason to pay extra attention to your driving. Not that paying closer attention while allowing for a distraction is the answer. In fact, it isn't.
People need to understand that many of the things they do while driving, and the levels of alertness and situational awareness they employ whilst driving, are simply unsafe, and likely will become the factors of the fatal incident that takes their lives. This is no joke! But, for them to understand, they need to be taught.
But what can be done? How do you teach people about an issue they can't see? How do you interest them in the solutions to a problem they'll only acknowledge if, and likely when, a death opens their eyes to it? We can't wait for people to lose their lives before we're able to educate. An answer can be found in a phrase we're all familiar with: raising awareness.
Had I but the skills and knowledge, I would set up an informational website that anyone could access. It would display statistics about driving related distractions and deaths, articles and videos posted by people affected by or knowledgeable about traffic deaths, and educational games. It would need to be marketed across social media platforms, schools, colleges and universities, police stations, and even people. What I mean by that last one is merchandise to raise awareness, such as t-shirts, bracelets, baseball caps, keychains, and stickers. The money raised can be used to further the organization's marketing, and pay for volunteers to speak at events, high schools, college campuses, etc.
Additionally, educated people need to make a conscious effort to be better drivers, by implementing the knowledge they have. I personally can do this by remembering that getting there safely is more important to everyone than getting there on time. Speeding, or racing through storms, to arrive on time increases your chances of making a mistake, and potentially killing yourself, or others. Also, great care needs to be taken when driving in rain, snow, and/or whiteout conditions. Many drivers forget or simply don't know the dangers of ignoring that fact. I've been in the ditch, and seen other people rolled over into ditches, because I and they underestimated the road conditions-and some of us shouldn't have been out on those roads anyway.
Precautions must be taken, the dangers understood, and the drivers alert. This is how we as a nation can lower the number of deaths related to driving. Remember, "Complacency is a killer."