Don’t Take Life for Granted: The Seriousness of Driving

Motor vehicle accidents have become one of the major leading causes of death. In fact, it’s almost daily that I’m getting notifications from my News On 6 app about recent car accidents or traffic backups caused by accidents in my area. When operating a vehicle you’re responsible for ensuring the safety of yourself, potential passengers, and anyone else on the road. Operating a vehicle comes with lots of responsibility, yet it can easily be taken for granted.

Many new drivers learn informally from their parents, friends, or other family members. With constant notifications of car accidents, it's becoming more obvious the urgency for getting professional driving education. An advantage of getting professional driver’s education, it ensures the information and teaching methods are consistent and similar to others. In my experience, professional driver’s education typically teaches about defensive driving. The concept of defensive driving may be lost in casual teaching. One of the best ways to prevent yourself from falling victim to a car accident is being a defensive driver. Defensive driving is simply anticipating potential hazards or dangers on the road. You can’t control how other people drive, but you can control how you react in a situation. Having a trained and skilled driving instructor can also be more effective. These teachers usually have the skills and knowledge of how to effectively correct bad driving habits. For example, I took drivers ed and I had about 4-5 different instructors with all unique teaching methods. Each instructor taught different driving skills, habits, or knowledge that has helped me become a good, safe driver. Because these instructors were trained to teach driving, they were able to effectively communicate information to me at times when I didn’t understand. My parents had a harder time communicating certain things to me that I could retain, but the driving instructors had the skills to find a way for me to understand. Lastly, I spent about half of my time during the in class portion of driver’s ed learning about and discussing motor vehicle accidents. I was shown several informational videos of types of accidents and how to prevent them. I was also shown several heart throbbing videos about car accidents. This was done to ensure students were well aware of the severity of motor vehicle accidents and how they can destroy lives. All in all, driver’s ed provided me with a wide range of knowledge, awareness, and skills that, no matter how hard they tried, my parents weren’t  able to give me. 

As a society, how can we prevent motor vehicle accidents? First, we can increase driving law enforcement. If someone is breaking a driving law, they are most likely driving dangerously and putting themselves and others in harm's way. We need stricter methods to reduce speeding and dangerous driving. Traffic cameras can help identify people speeding, running red lights, and breaking other laws. We need more consequences for dangerous driving. With stricter driving consequences, drivers are more likely to be more conscious of how they drive and become safer drivers. This may sound too extreme, but if this is what saves lives then I believe this change is worth it. 

Secondly, we need to eliminate phone usage while driving. Today, hundreds of people will easily follow influencers or social media trends. Advertisements and social media trends promoting anti-phone usage while driving could be effective. A phone update to monitor and/or limit phone usage while driving could also work. For example, this update could recognize when the user is driving and either limit app usage or eliminate phone usage completely. The only trick for this to work would be to decipher whether the user is actually driving or just in a car. If done correctly a phone update could help police this issue. Lastly, driving under the influence (DUI) is a major cause of motor vehicle accidents. Therefore, attaching a breathalyzer to cars may help. A breathalyzar is a device used to detect the amount of alcohol in an individual. If the breathalyzer detects the driver is not of sound mind, then it would prevent the individual from turning the car on. Again, if successful, this DUI prevention method could be very effective. All this to say, there are many causes for car accidents, however, by preventing or eliminating these main causes, we could potentially eliminate most motor vehicle accidents. 

Personally, I have not experienced being in a car accident; however, a few of my friends and family members have been in car accidents. Fortunately, none of the accidents caused major bodily harm or fatality. By coincidence, all these accidents were caused by the other driver. From what I’ve heard, one common theme to these accidents was irresponsible driving. With all that said, I’ve also witnessed some irresponsible driving from my loved ones. For example, their phone usage. There should be no phone usage while driving whatsoever. However, using the GPS, listening to music, and calling someone hands-free are the only acceptable ways of using a phone while driving. Yet, there are times I’ve seen my friends or family text someone back, take a photo, change the music, or other things on their phones. Although these are small acts, they still pose a threat to themselves and anyone else on the road. 

Furthermore, rushing while driving is also irresponsible. Ideally, all drivers should leave more than enough time to drive to their destination, park, and get to where they need to be. They should know exactly where they’re going and have the GPS ready if they don’t. Unfortunately, it has become a norm to rush on the road. As a society, we live busy lives and don’t allow ourselves plenty of time to drive. By allowing plenty of time, it not only prevents from rushing, it also aids in our safety, and helps prepare us for any obstacles on the way. Lastly, I’ve witnessed people not taking care of their vehicles. Vehicle maintenance and care does not pose an immediate danger or threat, but it can later on. For example, scraps of metal on the highway are likely parts of damaged vehicles. Or in bad weather such as rain or snow, damaged vehicles are more likely to lose control and cause accidents. Thus, recklessly driving over speed bumps or pot holes can easily damage vehicles. Disregarding regular and proper vehicle maintenance such as oil changes or tire rotations can also cause potential hazards. In general, there are many small, irresponsible ways people can cause or contribute to car accidents. 

All this to say, there are several ways myself and others can become better and safer drivers. For instance, ensuring plenty of time to drive to the destination can avoid rushing and making poor, unsafe choices. Secondly, knowing where to go before putting the car in drive, and as a passenger, helping the driver with directions can avoid phone usage while driving. Discouraging phone usage while driving is a way to help others become safer drivers. As a society, we need to normalize saying, “let me know when you get there, then we can talk”. No conversation,whether it’s texting or calling, is more important than peoples’ lives. Lastly, properly maintaining vehicles is important for safety. It ensures the driver has control over the vehicle and the vehicle will operate at its highest quality. These are all changes that everyone, including myself, should start doing to contribute to responsible and safe driving. 

Driving is a privilege that we as a society should be taking more seriously. Nowadays, we live such busy, fast-paced lives that we forget the value and importance of human lives while driving. Texting, rerouting the GPS, changing songs, getting to work on time, skipping an oil change are habits that are never worth the costs of human lives. However, because we live so busily, we take for granted each day we get to wake up and live. We don’t think through the seriousness of operating a vehicle. As a society, we need to slow down, be grateful for everyday we are given and act that way on the road.