As a great man once said, “Everyone driving slower than you is an idiot, everyone driving faster than you is a maniac.” If you have to drive to work, it’s more than likely that yelling about someone’s poor driving is just as routine in your daily commute as your morning coffee. Most people treat driving as the secret 11th amendment on the Bill of Rights that guarantees their right to merge across 4 lanes without ever touching their blinkers. Everyone has their own opinions about how to drive correctly; how much to accelerate, how to properly stay alert, or even basic driving laws. But no matter how much people get road rage or disagree, there is one thing that everyone can agree on: getting there alive. Even if you have a perfect driving record, and most people don’t, a reckless driver can ruin your record, or even your life depending on the crash. Driving is a privilege, not a right, and the sooner you start treating it like one, the safer everyone will be.
As a privilege, you should always make sure that you know your traffic laws when driving so that you keep pedestrians safe. For instance, something as simple as turn signals is required for every turn you make, but even this fundamental law isn’t entirely followed. According to the National Library of Medicine, in an article titled “Characteristics of turn signal use at intersections in baseline naturalistic driving”, with a sample size of 108 drivers, 25% of left turns and 29% of right turns were not signaled. Why do almost a quarter of people not follow such a basic rule? While the reasoning may differ from person to person, not using turn signals is usually a dangerous combination of laziness and confidence. According to Insurance Journal in an article titled “Survey Explains Why Drivers Are Not Turned on By Using Signals”, 42 percent of those drivers say they don’t have enough time, and 23 percent admit they are just plain “lazy.” If someone doesn’t have enough time or energy to flick on their signals, maybe they’re taking driving for granted.
Some people might say this is all exaggeration, or that signals don’t matter, so they shouldn’t be followed. And while turn signals may not be a life or death situation every turn, it’s this overconfidence that causes many accidents. One example is how turn signals are vital in preventing accidents. According to a study conducted by the Society of Automotive Engineers, drivers who fail to use their turn signals account for over 2 million accidents per year. 2 million preventable accidents in just one year because drivers were confident that they don’t matter. Another example of confident but dangerous driving is drunk driving. Drunk driving is one of the most deplorable things a citizen can do. Not only because they endanger themselves, but because they risk innocent civilians who can do everything correctly, but still get hurt. According to a study titled “Effects of alcohol intoxication on driving performance, confidence in driving ability, and psychomotor function: a randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled study” by the National Library of Medicine, a driver’s confidence in their driving ability remains unchanged when they’re inebriated. This means that if you drive like you’re the king of the road while sober, you’ll drive with that same confidence while drunk. When you’re more cautious however, you can realize what you should be doing in any situation that involves alcohol and cars; If you’re drinking at all, don’t trust your driving ability, and find another way home. According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, in 2021, 13,384 people died in alcohol-impaired driving traffic deaths. So many preventable deaths, both driver and pedestrian, could be avoided if you took traffic codes seriously and followed them like everyone else. At this point, after seeing all the statistics, studies, and preventable deaths, you could still be on the fence about the issue. You might argue that even if you make a rolling stop here or there, you’d never do something as bad as impaired driving. And while everyone thinks that it won’t happen to them, those 13 thousand deaths don’t come from nowhere, and an experience like this has even happened to a close friend of mine. While they would never drive under the influence, they weren’t behind the wheel. Their cousin’s friend was driving them, and he was unfortunately high off of marijuana. This wasn’t revealed until after they had crashed on a freeway. Thankfully, my friend was left unscathed, but only because their cousin was t-boned on the other side of the vehicle, and sadly passed away. The loss of family, my friend having paralyzing car anxiety for months to come, and thousands of dollars in damages all could have been avoided if that single driver had taken driving more seriously.
So how can we avoid all these losses? The quickest and most effective way of making roads safer is by making the people who drive on it safer. If you see a friend of yours practicing uncareful driving such as not using their turn signal, make sure to hold them to a higher standard and educate them on the importance of following basic traffic laws. If you are arguing with someone over the rules of the road, make sure to properly look up state code so that both people come out of the discussion as smarter drivers. Most of all however, make sure you’re setting a good example and following traffic laws yourself. Breaking the rules is a slippery slope, and if one person does it, everyone thinks it's ok. Don’t be the reason someone gets road rage, make sure everyone’s on the same page, with safe driving practices.