Safety Starts at the Wheel

Becoming a good driver starts with experience but becoming a safe driver starts with you. The importance of driving safety is underestimated, it is more than just putting your seatbelt on and protecting yourself, it is also taking the lives around you into consideration. Being a newly driver can be fun and exciting, but the smallest acts of selfishness can end your life or others’ in a matter of seconds. According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, as of 2017, an average of 3,166 deaths are caused solely by texting and driving, about 9 deaths each day. It is most common to find teenagers texting and driving which is why driver education courses before or during obtaining a license is incredibly important.
Driver education courses open your eyes to the reality that anything could happen, even if it is not your own doing. These courses are not predominantly to educate drivers on the basic road laws, but to educate drivers on what not to do when driving and how to protect yourself from possible reckless drivers on the road. Grasping this knowledge and engaging in it every time you get behind the wheel could potentially save your life or someone else’s one day. Driver education is spreading awareness that contributes to reducing the number of deaths caused by driving. Being mindful and taking the simplest steps to influence safety amongst others on the road takes on a boundless impact.
Checking your tires, making sure your windshield is clean enough to see through, putting your seatbelt on, these simple precautions that we don’t even think of before getting into the car and driving have a higher chance of reducing the number of deaths. Think about those selfish acts we all have made at one point, responding to a text that wasn’t even important, shuffling through our playlist to find the song we want to listen to, speeding because we have to be somewhere on time, multi-tasking while driving because we’re running late, the list goes on. When we take these risks that are never worth taking, we are setting our lives to a halt; we are showing, in that moment, we don’t care about ourselves or any of the lives around us. How horrific would it be for your loved ones to find out that you were killed or seriously injured due to another driver’s insignificant selfish act?
Thankfully, I have never had an experience of being in a car accident, but after being reeducated on driver safety, I realize that I have witnessed family and friends driving irresponsibly, including myself. The first step to being a safer, better driver is to be considerate with every slightest act, to think how it could in any way put yourself or others in danger. When you see a friend or family member driving irresponsibly it is important to speak out and educate them. To be safe, it starts with the individuals who want to see that change.