January 26, 2011 started out just like any other normal day for me. I was 7 years old and in the 1st grade, and it was my grandmother’s birthday. My mother picked me up from school, and we went to pick up Chinese food for dinner (a favorite of my grandmother and I), then started driving home. When we were stopped while waiting in a queue to merge on the highway, we felt a bump from the back of our car. Lo and behold, we had discovered that the driver behind us had rear-ended our car, and my mother and the driver went to exchange information and check for damage. I was scared at the time, though thankfully my mother ended up not being at fault, the car was unharmed, and the other driver was cooperative and amicable. We got home about an hour or so later, and while I might have been disappointed that my dinner was cold I went to bed that night with a new appreciation for safe driving, which is inculcated via strong driver’s education programs and a few simple safety steps.
First of all, there is ample evidence to suggest that driver’s education programs have an association with lowered traffic fatality rates, showing these programs’ crucial role in our safety on the road. According to a 2015 study by the University of Nebraska - Lincoln, drivers who have not completed driver’s education have a 75% higher chance of getting a traffic ticket, a 24% higher chance of getting in an accident with fatalities or injuries, and a 16% higher chance of having an accident. Furthermore, according to the Lincoln City Homepage, statistics from the state of Oregon show that teens without drivers’ licenses from ages 15 to 20 cause 91% of crashes involving teen drivers. Given this, one can clearly see the indispensability of driver’s education programs in promoting safety on the road.
Second, there are several other different factors that can be taken to reduce the number of traffic fatalities. For one, texting while driving can be incredibly dangerous - though very preventable. Texting while driving takes a driver’s attention off the road for an average of 4.6 seconds, or about the length of a football field on the road, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. More than 3,000 teenagers die each year in crashes caused by texting and driving, and cell phones play a role in about 1.6 million car crashes annually, despite the fact that they’re quite preventable. By putting your phone on silent, ignoring notifications until you’re parked, or putting it out of reach, you can do your part towards improving road safety.
Another factor that one can take to reduce the number of fatalities on the road is to always drive while sober. According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, about 28 people die every day from drunk-driving crashes - about 1 person every 52 minutes - and 10,142 people died in total from drunk driving in the year of 2019. These numbers have thankfully gone down over the years, but we still have a long way to go and they’re quite preventable too. By taking simple steps such as ordering an Uber, choosing a designated driver friend to stay sober, or stopping people under the influence from driving, everybody can contribute towards reducing the impact of DUIs on our society.
Finally, there are many other easy actions that one can take to become a better, safer driver and to help others do the same. An obvious example of this is wearing a seat belt: not only is it illegal to drive without one on, but it’s also dangerous, as more than half of teens and adults who died in car crashes in 2018 were not wearing seat belts, according to the CDC. Another way to improve at driving is to avoid multitasking, as fiddling with the radio, checking one’s phone, drinking coffee, or other activities can keep one’s attention off the road, affecting concentration, according to AARP. Finally, one must be cognizant of their following distance from other cars, keeping a 4-second distance on streets and 6 seconds on highways. While it might be tempting to keep close to the cars in front of oneself to not disrupt traffic, this is actually detrimental because it could be dangerous if the car in front of you slams on their brakes without enough of a buffer to react in time.
All in all, there are many actions that people can take to become better drivers. Taking driver’s education courses is an important first step to learn the rules of the road with a trained professional, and avoiding driving while distracted or drunk, eschewing texting while driving, and taking simple safety steps like wearing a seat belt, not multitasking, and not tailgating can help to avoid accidents. While there are plenty of other salient examples, these are just a few of the steps that we should take as a society to be better drivers and cut down on accident rates, for the safety of both yourself and others.