Every second counts

           If you're thinking of looking at a text from someone and that it will only take a second, remember that a car traveling at 65 miles per hour will only take 3.15 seconds to travel the full length of a football field, so looking at your phone while driving this distance is like driving the distance of a football field while blindfolded. This is the concept that driver's education needs to instill in its students. Driver's education is the primary means of learning to drive, and it must be taught correctly to reduce accidents caused by human error. A proper driver's education experience is vital given our nation's roadway safety crisis; more than 40,000 people died due to car accidents in 2023. That's enough to fill a professional baseball stadium. If we don't have a proper driver's education, that number will only go up in the next few years.
         There are many things we can do to reduce road deaths. The first thing people can do is actually very simple: follow the law! Failing to follow traffic laws is the leading cause of road-related deaths. There are road laws for a reason, and that is to keep you and everyone else on the road safe while driving. The next thing we can do can actually be done before you even get in the car. It is important that, before you operate a motor vehicle, you perform a self-evaluation and check on your ability to safely operate a motor vehicle. Ask yourself, "Am I too tired to safely drive my car?" or "Am I feeling sick today?" Asking yourself these questions could save your life or someone else's. A few more things we can do are to leave space between you and the vehicle in front of you to allow a window of time for you to respond in the event of sudden stopping. The next thing you could do is put your seat belt on because this may be your last chance. 
          In 2025, I had a friend of mine involved in a deadly car accident that killed the driver and hospitalized the other 3 occupants. I am glad that my friend survived, but I think that more could have been done to prevent injuries and ensure that everyone could have lived. The vehicle slid off the road to the right, and the driver over-corrected and slid to the other side of the road; then the vehicle overturned, claiming the life of the driver and dealing serious injuries to the passengers. Driver's education could teach drivers what to do in the situation of loss of control of the vehicle while driving to prevent many more deaths. I had one near-accident experience that almost resulted in being sideswiped off the freeway. One morning, as my friend and I were on our way to the Greene County Career Center, a driver was speeding far beyond the speed limit and cut us off, and had my friend not hit the brakes real hard, we would have been shoved off the freeway going at speeds of 60 to 65 miles per hour, and who knows what would have been the result of that. There have been many times that my friend had driven his car on the way to school driving at speeds in excess of 100 miles per hour, which could have very easily resulted in an accident. 
          There are many steps that I will take to be a safe driver on the road. Firstly, I will not, under any condition, go past the speed limit. The speed limit is chosen after careful study of the road; it is there to allow ample time for drivers to react if something unexpected happens while driving on the road. Also, going too fast in your vehicle increases the likelihood that you will lose control of your vehicle. Loss of control of your vehicle at high speeds is practically a death sentence for every occupant in the vehicle and possibly other drivers on the road. Secondly, I will never run red lights or stop signs. Those things are there to prevent you from being hit directly on the side of your vehicle, which is potentially already traveling at high speeds. Thirdly, I will leave plenty of space between me and the driver in front of me on all roads and freeways to allow ample time for me to react in the event of sudden braking of the car in front of me. Finally, I will give myself an evaluation before driving any car to check that I can safely operate a motor vehicle. I personally will do more than these four things to increase safety while driving, but these are the four basic major things that I will do. 
          Cars are not toys, and they should not be treated as such. Cars are not alive; they do not care what you look like; they don't care what gender you are; they don't care if you are popular; and they don't care about all the good things you have done; if you are not careful, they will kill you. For those who have never been in an accident, remember: they are real, and they kill thousands upon thousands of people a year in our country alone. If you are the only one involved in an accident, you are not the only one who is affected; your family and friends care about you, so when you consider looking at that text only for a second or speeding just one time, keep you, your family, and friends in mind. Make sure that you are always wearing your seatbelt, because this warning may be your last chance. Safety on the road is not a joke; the laws are there to make sure that you get to go home tonight. Many people speed in their cars because they think it is fun, but it will not be so fun when your family gets the information that you just ended up in the hospital, or even died, because you were going way too fast.