Driving education is one of the most important things when discussing the number of car-related injuries and fatalities, but first, I believe it is important to know what even driving education is. Driving education is being taught techniques for the ability to drive a vehicle on the road to keep yourself and others around you safe. This can and most often does include traffic laws and driving laws, such as abiding by the speed limit or not driving under the influence. As we can see, these driving safety measures have a reason to be taught to up-and-coming drivers. Driving safety becomes even more important when you look at the number of teen deaths due to reckless driving. In the year 2020, around 2,800 teens in America will die, and a staggering 227,000 will get injured because of these automobiles. Even more astonishing is that a massive 29% of drivers intoxicated between the ages of 15 and 20 were in motor vehicle crashes, while a disheartening 24% resulted in death. This really goes to show the importance of learning driving safety. If more people could get access to this information, we would be able to reduce the number of teen deaths and build and maintain a much stronger community when it comes to driving.
I feel that the step we could take will be a little bit of a bumpy road, but an essential road none the less. There are a multitude of factors we could use to help reduce road-related injuries. One of the most obvious ones' is wearing seat belt laws. Despite me talking about alcohol, it is not the main threat to teen vehicle safety; it sets belts. No less than half of teens in 2020 from the ages of 16–19 were killed by car cashiers because of a lack of seat belts. Here’s where the problems emerge: each state has very different seat belt laws. States like New Hampshire have zero laws about seat belt safety, while states like California require both the front and back seats to have seat belts. Even stranger is that other states, like Georgia, do require the front seat to be strapped in but not the back seat. There are two simple fixes: primary enforcement and secondary enforcement. Primary enforcement law allows the police officer to give tickets because of a lack of wearing a seat belt. There is also a secondary enforcement seat belt law, where instead of allowing the police officers to hand out tickets because the passengers and/or driver are not wearing their seat belts, the police can only pull them over for other reasons like running a stop sign or speeding. Certain states include secondary enforcement for adult drivers, and minor drivers have primary enforcement seat belt laws. These do work; studies in North Carolina show an overall decrease in seat belt use. These laws should really be in effect all across America. Another one of my favorites is the GDL, or Graduated Driver Licensing, which exists in all U.S. states and is a 3-stage system with the sole intent of helping starting drivers find driving skills in very low-risk conditions. Driving isn’t a very easy thing; there are so many rules and abbreviations you have to look out for while driving. At the start, it is extremely daunting, but I believe practice makes perfect, and that’s exactly what the GDL does. The first is the learner’s permit, where you get an introduction to driving, turn signals, turning lanes, and all the other basic information. Then you move on to step two, the intermediate or provisional license, which levies some of the restrictions of a permit, and finally you get a full license. The GDL has more depth than this, too. In specific states, the use of a cell phone by teen drivers is not allowed; this is in effect in 36 states. It is kind of a shame that not all states have this law. I feel American teen drivers could really benefit from it. These are just a very short list of helpful steps in trying to decrease the number of deaths from driving. It is almost certain that if not just a handful of states had these laws, motor vehicle injuries would decrease.
The topic of a car crash is close to home for me. My mom, before I was born, was in a car crash. I'm thankful nothing truly bad happened to her—just a scar on her hand. She got this scar as a young adult; she was taking a taxi, and this crazy other taxi driver rammed into the car out of apparently spite. Just thinking about it runs chills down my spine. The fact that someone could make the conscience decision to attempt to take someone’s life because some other business absolutely madding to me thankfully, she was wearing a seat belt, so she was fine, but I digress. Because of this, my mother instilled various knowledge about driving safety. From basic things like turning a signal and monitoring your fuel tank to big things like knowing you’re not alone on the road, you need to focus not only on yourself but also on the people around you, and I plan to start using all these things when I start driving.