Safety and Saving Lives

It all starts somewhere. For some, their driveway, others their neighborhood, and I the Tektronix parking lot. All different starting points that follow the same goal. Drive as well as possible. Unfortunately this is easier said than done due to a number of factors including but not limited to attention span, cell phone use, other teenage passengers and so on and so forth. This essay will explore the importance of drivers ed in reducing deaths, steps taken to reduce deaths and what I can do to help not just myself but others become safer drivers on the road.

To start off, let’s review teenagers and drivers ed. Teenagers are more likely prone to car accidents on the road due to impulsiveness and overall recklessness. However this can be combated with proper education and information so much so that according to the University of Nebraska, “A new study that followed more than 150,000 teen drivers over eight years has found that driver's education significantly reduces crashes and traffic violations among new drivers.” The article continues, “Young drivers who have not completed drivers education are 75 percent more likely to get a traffic ticket, 24 percent more likely to be involved in a fatal or injury accident and 16 percent more likely to have an accident, the study showed.” The article finishes off this segment with this sentence and statistics, “During their first year of driving, the group who took drivers ed had significantly fewer accidents and traffic tickets than the group that logged driving hours without formal driving instruction.

> 11.1 percent of the drivers education cohort was involved in a car crash, compared to 12.9 percent of those who did not take driver's education.

> 2.1 percent of the drivers education group was involved in an accident that caused injury or death, compared to 2.6 percent of those who did not take drivers education.

> 10.4 percent of students who took drivers education was ticketed for moving traffic violations, compared to 18.3 percent of those who did not take drivers education.

> Similar trends were seen for alcohol-related violations and for crashes and traffic violations during the second year of driving.”. Clearly, proper education of use of a vehicle pays off.

Fortunately death prevention does not stop here. A many number of obvious yet vital choices can help prevent a fatal accident. These include a drivers ed course, neglect of one’s cellphone while driving, using the turn signal, eliminating other distractions such as exceptionally loud music, passengers causing distractions and not being preoccupied with anything else. This combined with the simple blind spot check can help prevent many accidents. The reason I bring up blind spot checks is specifically for cyclists. I hail from Portland, Oregon, a very cyclist friendly city that is fairly well known for the activity. Checking your blind spots and not just your mirrors allows you to check for a bicyclist in your blind spot while you are turning thus allowing you to prevent a collision between your four-thousand pound vehicle and the cyclist’s 20 pound carbon fiber bike frame.

Nonetheless the expertise on the road doesn’t stop with you as other people can learn to prevent accidents too! What I’m getting at is that while you may drive near perfectly sometimes this cannot make up for someone else’s error. Specifically, car accidents. I have the unfortunate experience of being in a car accident with a semi-truck while entering a two-lane roundabout. As I entered, the truck driver did too without putting on his four ways. While his cab remained in the right lane his truck bed entered the left lane of the roundabout and into my hood, fender, and headlight. While I had entered the roundabout without and cross traffic, used my turn signal, and made a blind spot check this still didn’t prevent an accident. Sure, I should’ve just let the semi driver go through on his own but one’s awareness of their own vehicle’s dimensions may also prevent an accident. It’s small details like this that make a significant difference.

Overall, you can make a big difference on the road by driving well. With the use and combination of techniques such as blind spot checks, signaling, quickly yet safely merging on the freeway as well as taking a drivers ed course you can not only save money on car insurance but more importantly prevent deaths of people while driving and help make the roads in your town a safer place!