You are in your brand new convertible; it feels as if you have waited a lifetime to zip up and down the blacktops that circle city limits with the top down. You are just zooming across an old country highway with the wind in your hair when your phone buzzes: it is your best friend asking how the new ride feels. 500 yards ahead, a deer is contemplating crossing the road to reunite with her fawn.
You are in your lifted truck, your pride and joy that you have had since you graduated high school. You paid for this baby with all of your own hard earned savings, and you have taken care of her well. She is fresh out of the shop with new tires, and you are out for a cruise on the gravel roads to burn some of that brand new rubber. Your radio is cranked and you are leaving a cloud of dust in your wake, when your phone chimes: it is your dad, asking if you wouldn’t mind coming back to the house to take some branches down to the compost site. You are typing out a response while, meanwhile, your elderly neighbor is turning out onto the gravel road in front of you just a quarter mile ahead. She did not notice your truck barreling down the road.
You have just parked across the street from your mother’s house. It was a twelve hour drive and you are tired. You lean forward and rest your forehead on the steering wheel for just a moment; your eyes are heavy, but your six year old daughter is chattering with excitement as she unbuckles. A car rushing by causes you to lift your head; you notice sleepily that the speed limit has been raised by ten miles per hour here. You and your daughter get out of the car, but she is faster. On tiny feet she runs across the street, curls tossed by the wind, Hello Kitty backpack bouncing in each stride. In the blink of an eye, an eighteen wheeler is hurtling up the street. You call to your daughter, but she is frozen with fear, almost halfway across the road.
The idea of car and truck accidents is a concept that is far from reality for most of us until tragedy is shoved into our lives: a classmate killed in a drunk driving accident, heavy machinery like cranes and semi trucks in construction accidents on the local news station, a phone call that a distant relative has been badly hurt in a crash.
Regardless of how distant or immediate the consequences of car and truck accidents is in your life, it is important to be educated on the statistics of motor vehicle accidents.
Almost 40,000 Americans die from car and truck accidents every year.
While there is a vast variety of causes of vehicle accidents, many of them can be predicted. The more people avoid drinking and driving, using the cell phone while driving, or avoid traveling in inclement weather, the more that number will decline. People in more urban settings can utilize consumer taxi services such as Uber, public mass transit, or forms of being a pedestrian like bicycling to lower their odds of perishing in a motor vehicle accident.
Too many people are using alcohol or narcotics while driving. In fact, over one million people were arrested in the United States for operating a motor vehicle while under the influence of alcohol or narcotics. Even if you are under the influence of something and are involved in a crash that is not fatal to you or anyone else, you will still be facing legal issues and charges for property damages and operating a vehicle while intoxicated.
Even though it is something that we all do almost every day, we often forget how much of a responsibility operating a motor vehicle is. We put our lives, the lives of anyone in our vehicle, and the lives of other drivers and pedestrians at stake when we practice unsafe driving habits, such as talking on the phone or knowing our limits when consuming alcohol. Avoiding car and truck accidents is the responsible thing to do.