Concentration, Anticipation, Consideration Would Have Saved His Life

It was a beautiful autumn morning. The sun streamed across the road at a particularly blinding angle, common at that time of year. My friend’s teenaged son was on the way to school, and was crossing the road when a driver, blinded by the sunlight, and distracted by a phone message, struck and killed him. It only took a moment. A moment to lose the beauty and wonder that is life. A moment of the driver not paying attention. A moment for the driver to think turning eyes to a phone screen was more important than keeping eyes on the road. The driver was not concentrating on the task at hand, a matter of life and death: to safely and responsibly operate a two-ton killing machine. The driver was not anticipating that the road was full of kids, and the sunlight made it difficult to see them.  The driver struck him and took his life without even so much as touching the brakes. In the ultimate lack of consideration, the driver denied my young friend’s right to live.

 

Concentration, anticipation, consideration; these words were embossed into a strip of tape my grandfather had stamped out himself, and affixed to his dashboard, always within eyesight as he drove.  Concentration, anticipation, consideration; these words are engraved in my memory, and they influence how I drive, and how I live, to this day. 

 

Getting behind the wheel is an act that can be taken for granted, treated casually, like the car is an extension of the body. But getting behine the wheel is in actual fact, an act of taking your life, the lives of your loved ones, and the lives of all whom you encounter, in your hands. 

 

Driver education is the key element that teaches and imparts the importance of a driver’s responsibilities. By teaching the principals of concentration, anticipation, and consideration, driver’s education reduces the number of driving related deaths. 

 

To reduce the number of deaths related to driving, the steps needed are wider and consistent access to effective driver education for all new drivers. Driver’s education focuses on engraining foundational concepts: concentration, anticipation, consideration which effectively impart the responsibilities and consequences of being a safe driver. To stay alert and aware, to anticipate what might happen and to take precautions before it happens. To act with consideration and to respect the rules of the road. These are the responsibilities of every driver that are taught via driver’s education.

 

Driver’s education forms and reinforces positive, respectful, and responsible attitudes which are necessary to create safe, responsible, respectful drivers, which in turn, prevents driving related deaths.

 

In today’s modern world of multiple pressures, instant gratification, and the crush and stress of living in close proximity to so many strangers, it is easy to lose understanding of the concept of consideration. Consideration of another’s right to live. Consideration that not one of us has the sole right to use the road. Each person has as much right to be on the road as another, including drivers, pedestrians, cyclists, and anyone else. Consideration for the cooperative system of rules and courtesy that keeps the roadways working. Driver’s education teaches consideration for others and establishes a baseline of an ethos of respect. Respect is an essential element to being a good driver. When people do not behave as if they alone are entitled to drive on the road, driving related deaths are reduced. 

 

Anticipation is the act of noticing what is happening now, and paying attention to what might happen an instant later. Staying focused while responsible for a vehicle’s movements, and anticipating all possibilities while behind the wheel reduces driving related deaths, and driver’s education teaches this awareness. By keeping present, the driver takes responsibility for the very serious task of operating a hunk of metal that is capable or wreaking total destruction on many lives in less than a heartbeat.

  

Staying present while driving, and paying attention to what one is doing, is necessary to being a better and safer driver. Concentrating, continuously scanning the road, looking in and around an intersection before entering it, and driving without distraction are steps I follow to be a better and safer driver. Knowing, following, and respecting the rules of the road requires concentration. Concentration helps others become safer on the road by not spreading entitled behaviour which endangers others. By modelling a calm, tolerant, way of sharing the road, others are inspired to return the same respect for others. 

 

If only on that fateful autumn day, the driver had been concentrating on the road, anticipating what might happen, and considering my young friend’s right to live. My friend would still be with us today. Concentration, anticipation, consideration. Driver’s education is the key to reducing car accidents and driver related deaths.