After a long day, you drive home, a routine you do most everyday. As you drive, you happen upon a car on the side of the road. The front of the car looks like a crumpled up piece of paper. All around the area you see police cars and ambulances. You wonder what might have happened to cause such a scene. Although you feel somber, this site does not surprise you. This is not the first time you have seen an accident like this. While it may not be everyday, seeing an accident is a common occurrence. You think to yourself that you would never be in such a huge accident. You think that you're a good driver because you passed your driver’s test and that automatically makes you shielded from ever being in such a predicament. You think that even though you may speed sometimes, it doesn’t hurt anyone. You think that you are capable enough to send a few texts while driving because you only look down for a few seconds. You think to yourself that your road rage is reasonable because it’s the other person’s fault. You think that even though car accidents are sadly very common, you would never be in one. However, what you didn’t know was that the person driving the car you saw on the side of the road thought the exact same things. Having the mindset of thinking you would never be in an accident while still driving recklessly is a problem that plagues many of us today. So many of us take for granted how much power you hold while driving a car. So, teaching people safe driving tactics will help these tragic common occurrences not be as common.
One of the first rules you learn before starting to drive is to buckle your seatbelt. The action seems simple enough and feels like second nature to many. Most cars even alert a person when they have not buckled up, and there are various billboards verifying the importance of seatbelts. This first step of driving is so common that many people take it for granted. Buckling up can increase your odds of surviving a car crash because instead of being thrown out of the car upon impact, the seatbelt will tighten and keep you in your seat. A beneficial way to show the importance of seatbelts is through visual aid. For example, many videos use a mannequin in the driver’s seat to show the effects of how a person would move when hitting an object head on with and without a seatbelt. These kinds of visual aids are very beneficial to people who don’t see the reason to use a seatbelt. So, one of the best ways to help everyone become a better and safer driver is completing this step even before you start your car.
When people start learning to drive, they are usually taught by their in-car instructors the art of defensive driving. Unfortunately, those teachings are soon forgotten by many due to the troublesome road rage. I’ve seen road rage first hand and how it can affect the way a person drives. My father has road rage from time to time and tends to drive recklessly either by tailing another car or trying to keep someone from going in a certain lane. Every time this happens it always ends the same way: my father is still angry and I’m terrified that we are about to get into a car crash. So, teaching the benefits of defensive driving, such as leaving a good amount of space between cars and letting people into lanes, can help offset road rage. Not only can defensive driving prevent you from getting road rage, but it can also prevent another person from getting road rage. The last place people need to get infuriated is in a large, heavy, metal box going 60 miles per hour.
As people become more comfortable behind the wheel, many will feel as though they can multitask while on the road. Texting and driving is the most common occurrence of distracted driving and can be very deadly. Sending a simple, “I’m on my way” or “I’m almost there” can be detrimental, especially at higher speeds. For example, looking down at your phone for 3 seconds while driving at 60 miles per hour means you have driven over 250 feet without looking at the road. At high speeds, every second counts because that could be the difference between life or death. Therefore, understanding the importance of not texting and driving can save your life along with others. So, keeping yourself from texting and driving could be as simple as leaving a note in your car or downloading an app to send automated text messages saying that you are driving. No matter how you decide to not text and drive, you will be helping yourself in the long run.
While there are many people who choose to be a safe driver, there are many people who choose to be unsafe. Luckily, there are people put in place to deal with reckless drivers by writing them up and ticketing them. When I was little, I remember always being scared and confused when my parents would get stopped and given a speeding ticket. However, now that I’m older, I understand that the point of the speeding ticket was to create a safer environment on the road. While most of the weight of safe driving is on the person behind the wheel, having authorities around to lessen the amount of unsafe driving is comforting. Therefore, having more authorities watching the road would help decrease reckless driving. In order to do that, more compensation for the authorities would be needed in order to acknowledge the importance of them.
The normality of getting into a car crash is devastating to think about, especially because a lot of the accidents could be prevented. Road rage and texting while driving are unfortunately sad realities of many reckless drivers. Additionally, these same people do not realize how easily they could cause fatalities. Helping people understand how to become a better driver through safe tactics, such as defensive driving and buckling up, can help lessen the amount of accidents. So, when you set off for the day in your car, ask yourself whether you are going to be a safe driver, or if you are going to be the tragic common occurrence.