Driver safety and education is a major issue in the United States and needs to be treated much more intensively than it is currently. With myself being a victim of negligent driving at a young age and witnessing the damage it can do not only physically but also emotionally, I find myself questioning the current status of driving education and the requirements needed to have the privilege of driving. There are an endless number of ways we as a country could approach the number of driving related deaths and fatalities, some of which are very obtainable. Driving is one of the most dangerous activities many people do on a daily basis, and reducing the risk should be a top priority.
One very simple way of reducing the number of traffic incidents per year is to simply require individuals to be retested on their driving abilities on a specific interval or if they are found to be at fault for a driving incident whether it was a single or multi-car incident. This would allow state governments to keep better track of drivers while making it easier to keep those not fit for driving off of the roads. If the specific interval approach should be adopted, I believe that as drivers approach their elderly years the frequency of the tests should increase to insure that age is not affecting their ability behind the wheel. If one should fail one of the required retests they should not have the privilege revoked, but should be required to take a driver education class, whether in-person or online whichever is more feasible, which would make the change more palatable for the general population because the fear of having their license revoked would not be present. This method could and should be paired with another approach at increasing driver education by making the process of receiving a license more rigorous.
A good example for making the process of getting a license more rigorous is Germany. Germany has a much lower vehicle incident rate than the United States by emphasizing lane discipline and reckless driving behavior more when being tested rather than in the United States where we emphasize the rules of the road. This has proven successful for Germany and would be very easy to implement over here in the U.S. The personal impact it would have on the average individual is minuscule, yet the results would be tangible. While requiring more testing while making them more rigorous is a simple way to improve traffic safety, an even easier way is to take more personal responsibility to commit to safety and enforcing rules pertaining to poor driver safety.
If the thought of increased consequences for reckless and unsafe driving was more instilled in the minds of drivers around the country, unsafe driving would naturally decrease. Increasing discipline for unsafe driving methods such as tailgating and aggressive lane switching, which are major causes for traffic incidents, should, in practice, decrease the frequency of those methods. As for the personal responsibility portion, individuals like myself should strive to be safe drivers and to encourage our loved ones to be safer drivers. The easiest way to do this is to put the phone down while driving. Distracted driving is a major epidemic that affects everyone because of the number of possible distractions that can occur when driving, with the largest culprit being cellphones. By encouraging others to put and keep the phone down while driving is possible the easiest way to decrease distracted driving incidents. This takes me to my last approach on how to decrease driving incidents, if you cannot keep the phone away while driving, have somebody else drive.
The most surefire way to prevent yourself from being the reason behind a traffic incident is to not drive in the first place. With the increase of apps like Uber and Lyft where the ability to get a proven safe ride is at everyone's fingertips, it is critical that people utilize those resources not only to prevent distracted driving, but to prevent the most dangerous driving activity, drunk driving. Drunk driving was the culprit in nearly a third of all driving related deaths in 2022, all of which could have been easily avoided if the drunk individual had a safe ride. Drunk driving can be decreased with every point that I have made in this essay from increased disciplinary actions to personal responsibility, whether that is getting yourself a sober ride or offering sober rides to friends and family in need of one to keep them off the road. The last way to keep intoxicated individuals off the road is to increase the number of options when it comes to obtaining a safe ride. Yes, everyone can get an Uber or a Lyft ride at the touch of a button, but they can be expensive, the solution for that is to increase public transportation. If public transportation was a more feasible option for many Americans, not only would drunk driving decrease, but in general the number of vehicles on the road would decrease which has a great impact not only on driver safety, but environmentally and beyond.
There are so many ways to decrease traffic incidents and deaths, whether that is increasing driver skill, decreasing the number of possible distractions, or just decreasing the number of drivers on the road in total. Many of the approaches to achieve these goals have simple solutions, we just have to work together as a society to work towards these goals, ranging from personal impact an individual can have on those around them to pushing governmental entities to make these solutions a greater priority than they are now. All traffic related deaths and injuries are preventable and any steps we can take to decrease the amount of them is a step in the right direction.