The Cruel Truth

Amanda Miller

Scholarship Essay

In 2018, 40,000 people died from driving related accidents. Though it may not seem like a lot compared to our massive population of 3.272 million, let’s put the number into perspective.  If that is 40,000 people over a total of 365 days, that means an average of 109 people a day died from an activity so many people take for granted.  Absolutely no one thought it would be them as one of those 109 but it happened. People took chances that make it riskier, too. They got distracted for one second and changed the course of their lives. What can we do to change that? How can people open their eyes to this startling statistic?

The number of licensed drivers in 2018 was 225,721,700 in the U.S. That’s almost 69% of the country’s population.  Imagine if all of those people were given these statistics. Would it have changed the way they drove? Would it have caused people to rethink their actions? Everyone has to complete some form of driver’s education to receive their license.  Rather than only teaching the mechanics, what if the cruel truth was revealed, too? What if people saw that they were taking on a huge responsibility? Once people see that their actions have consequences, many are more willing to take responsibility and change their actions to not cause harm. Even if not everyone takes it to heart, if that death toll was reduced by even one hundred, that means one hundred more people would still have their loved ones.

I have seen my family drive irresponsibly. I have seen my family text and drive more times than I can count.  No one has ever been in an accident because of it, but I’ve been there when they’ve had to jerk the car back to their lane because they weren’t paying attention. It worries me because what if someone was in the lane beside them? What could have happened?  My friend was on her way to see me one day and hadn’t shown up for twenty minutes. I learned she had dropped her phone and reached for it. She had taken her eyes off the road for only one second and ran directly into the side of a car pulling out in front of her.  Luckily the worst that happened was a couple burns but it could have been significantly worse. Though these actions had no drastic effects, what if they had? Everyone knows that fatal accidents happen. What stops it from being someone you or someone you know in a fatal accident if distracted driving remains rampant?

Education is extremely important to make better and safer drivers.  If people realize that their actions have consequences, it may cause a change in their behaviors.  If these statistics are presented more openly to drivers than they currently are, who knows what it would do.  No one goes out into the road expecting it to be them, but it happens so much more than we think.

Sources:

https://ohsonline.com/articles/2019/02/18/nsc-motor-vehicle-deaths.aspx?m=1

https://www.census.gov/popclock/

https://hedgescompany.com/blog/2018/10/number-of-licensed-drivers-usa/