Every year, an average of thirty-five thousand people are killed in driving accidents, thirty-five thousand families mourn the loss of a loved one, thirty-five thousand friend groups find themselves one person short. Every single one of these deaths were preventable, every single one of these people could have lived a lengthy, fulfilling life, before it was unnecessarily cut short. Most commonly, lives lost to the road are due to simple ignorance, an unawareness of basic driver safety practices and knowledge, such as what a particular piece of signage means, how they should respond in a particular situation, the dangers of using their phone while driving, or that they are, in fact, too drunk to drive. While many of these things may seem like common sense to the experienced driver, we were all deeply inexperienced at one point or another, needing this “common sense” taught to us, just as any growing, developing individual would. An instructor, for example, may neglect to teach their student the rules of the road to a thorough enough extent, believing that most highway laws are innately known to all since they themselves have followed them without incident for a long time. This, however, is simply untrue. Like everyone else, the instructor learned everything they know because they were taught it, either from an instructor of their own, from a driver’s manual, or any number of other sources. This is why a thorough driver education that anyone can access is important, because not everyone is naturally taught about the intricacies of driving, putting some at a disadvantage, and increasing their chance of being the victim of a driving accident. To reduce the number of driver deaths on a large-scale, tremendous efforts would have to be made. Information on driver safety being available is not enough; it must be easily available to everyone, and people must be told about it, so they know this information exists and how to access it. Additionally, people need to know why it is so important to learn about driver safety. Making people understand the potentially grave significance of the responsibility of a driver’s license is critical to motivating potentially reckless drivers to consider their actions. We as a group need to make an effort to spread awareness of the dangers and necessary responsibilities of driving, and what the costs may be if road safety is not taken seriously.
Spreading awareness is important for lowering driver fatality rates, but we as individuals still need to put in the effort to apply the advice ourselves. We can recognize that there is a problem but acting on the problem to better ourselves remains a challenge, one which we must strive to overcome. We ourselves must put in the effort to better our own driving ability, and to make safer decisions. One potential way to do that is plan your routes in advance, so you understand the terrain and conditions you will be driving in. If you believe you will be encountering an aspect of traffic regulation, signage, or anything else you are unfamiliar with, this provides the opportunity to do preemptive research on how to handle the unknown obstacles and proceed to your destination safely. Similarly, mentally reviewing your driving performance once you have arrived can progressively assist in boosting performance over longer periods of time, as it allows you the opportunity to analyze how and where you drove, and what you can improve upon, and even just a trivial improvement is enough to save someone’s life, even your own. It is best practice, however, to make this mental check once you have arrived at your destination, not while on the road, as that will only increase your distraction. Yet another option that is often available yet rarely taken advantage of, except in emergencies, is pulling over to the side of the road. If you need to immediately mentally review an aspect of your driving, as there may be more, similarly difficult obstacles ahead, this is an immensely compelling option, which provides the free time to reorient yourself, review your actions, and decide how you are going to respond to future obstacles, all while being able to commit your full attention to this thought process. Finally, taking the time to fully process the potential consequences of reckless driving, both on yourself and others, can help deter poor decisions and promote a healthy degree of caution on the road. For example, my family is a victim of drunk driving, having lost our trailer bed and many other critical pieces of equipment for our family business, to a driver who was inebriated at the wheel. The driver swerved into our driveway while driving, destroying the trailer and most of our work equipment, and nearly striking my father in the process. Due to difficulties with insurance negotiations, it was an exceedingly long time before we could afford to replace any of it, and by that point, my family had to get jobs in a different field, no longer working independently. The driver that caused this damage ended up in jail for the remainder of that year for that, and several other motor-related felonies. The consequences of irresponsible driving can be disastrous, both for yourself, as you may find yourself incarcerated or dead, and for others, as others can very possibly die from your poor decisions, as my father nearly did. Any and all traffic accidents like these can be avoided, or at least minimized, so long as we continue to proliferate ideas of safe driving and exercising sound roadway judgment. Lives could very possibly be on the line, so drive safely.