Drive Safely

 A 10-year-old girl is dead and the 18-year-old driver who caused her death is in the burn unit at the University of Alabama – Birmingham hospital with life-threatening injuries.  In all, eight people were sent to the hospital.  For two families, life will never be the same.

I saw the aftermath of the wreck and I’ll have a hard time forgetting the silver tarp draped over the mass of twisted metal that was once a Toyota minivan, or the county coroner’s van arriving to remove the dead girl from the wreckage.  As I drove to work the next morning, a driver, who had earlier been tail-gating me, blew past me.  Didn’t he know that child had died the night before because of a speeding driver?  Watching him exceed the speed limit by a good 10 or 15 miles per hour, I wondered why there is never a police officer around or any actions to correct this behavior.

When a child is killed with a handgun, you will hear lots of voices crying for more gun control.  When a child dies in a car accident, which occurs much more frequently, you won’t hear those voices crying for more traffic laws or tighter traffic enforcement.  Similar to handguns, the vehicles we drive can kill or maim, simply because of the people operating them. And the key to reducing traffic deaths is not more laws or more cops, because there can never be enough enforcement, it’s us policing ourselves.

Policing ourselves means making driving our primary focus while we are driving.  You can’t hold a phone to your ear and focus on driving.  Texting, eating, and applying makeup are examples of activities that take our focus away from driving.  And we need to focus because a split-second may be the difference between life and death.

Policing ourselves means obeying the traffic laws. That means driving the speed limit, not following too closely, maintaining your lane, coming to a complete stop when making a right turn on red, and using turn signals. Obeying these laws will go a long way towards keeping us safe. 

A final way of policing ourselves is to be courteous drivers.  Don’t cut people off in traffic.  Allow people to merge. Drive the speed limit, not 10 mph below it or above it. Drive in the right lane; allow the faster traffic to use the left lane. Turn down the music. Remember that you aren’t in your own little world; be aware of what’s going on around you and how your actions may adversely affect others.

Too many senseless accidents happen every day that could have been avoided.  It only takes a second for a bad decision while driving to cause an accident.  And yes, I meant to say decision, a conscious act that you made.  Police yourself on the roadways.  The life you save by doing so may be your own.