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During
the summer of 2010, I was minding my own business as an 11-year old
while doing my laundry and listening to by Ellie Goulding
in my peaceful house. While folding my shirts and hearing
“exploooossioooonssss” from the song, my mom announced that my
Uncle Ronald was recently in a crash with my aunt that just died. Now
every time I hear this song and hear “ explossssiiooonsss” it
just makes me think about how devastating the crash was. My uncle
completely lost both of his legs and the love of his life. The
severity of my uncle’s crash and the statistics about the number of
deaths per year emphasizes the importance of drivers ed in
order to reduce the number of deaths to promote safety for everyone
behind the wheel. Thus, the steps to be a safe driver needed to be
taken by myself and everyone are to stop distracted driving, to stay
speed limit, and to provide more intense driving classes.

Distracted driving takes place every day; sometimes without the
driver’s knowledge. For example, 37% of respondents aged 18 to 34
said they felt a high degree of pressure to respond to work-related
messages while driving, parents with young children were more likely
to be distracted while driving (87%), and one in three female drivers
admitted to taking photos while driving. Every time we step into a
vehicle and transport ourselves or with others, we are at great risk
that needs to be emphasized in order to reduce car crashes. In order
to reduce crashes, we need to think of what are we doing while we are
in a car meticulously.

Reducing speeding
is critical to diminishing the number of crashes. There’s a reason
for the speed limits posted for every area to keep us safe; however,
not everyone follows the speed limit. Speeding increases accident
risk because it reduces the driver’s reaction time. For example,
in 2017, 9,717 people were killed from speeding. It’s so
devastating to see that almost 10,000 people lost their life from
driving. The actions that can be taken are leaving earlier so a
person doesn’t have to rush to the destination and by playing close
attention to the speedometer. Thus, if we drive to the speed limit we
would be able to make safer decisions and be able to be more aware of
our surroundings.

Providing more
intense driving classes would be helpful to reduce the number of car
crashes because from my experience and others’ instructors were too
lenient to getting the driving lesson done as quick as possible. New
drivers among the age of 16-19 are at a higher risk of motor vehicle
crash involvement among any other age group. The major factors that
take into play in teen car accidents are driver inexperience,
distracted driving, and reckless driving. If we provide more serious,
longer driving courses I feel as if the driving crashes rates will go
down because more teens/ new drivers will be able to have more
experience driving seriously.

In
conclusion, driving accident rates can decrease if we take the proper
actions to prevent crashes from happening. Driving is a freedom that
needs to be taken more seriously because it takes people’s lives
every day. Preventing distracted driving, following the speed limit,
and providing more rigorous driving classes in order to decrease the
rates of fatalities.