Learn how to drive or get off the road: 5 ways to make our streets safer

Posted by Catherine on Mar 11, 2010 in Add it to the List, Laughing is better than the alternative |

For some people, driving has become a bit of a challenge. Blame it on Toyota or multi-tasking failures everywhere, but we now hear daily about too many people killing themselves or others in an attempt to get from Point A to Point B.

Oprah Winfrey and overzealous legislators want to change all that. While there is always room for common-sense legislation, regulation, and Queen Oprah’s intervention, most improvements regarding our vehicles and driving laws require people to smarten up.

1. Treat your speeding car like a horny twenty year-old – downshift into neutral and don’t close your eyes.

I haven’t heard the term “unintended acceleration” since college. These days, the phenomenon has less to do with drunk frat boys and more to do with Toyota’s faulty engineering.

If your car’s gas pedal gets jammed and you find yourself going 80mph down a busy road, don’t panic. If you have time to call 911 or a local television station, you have time to use your head.

Whether the stuck pedal is due to faulty manufacturing or your kid’s missing wad of bubblegum, switch the car into neutral and try not to scream or shut your eyes. That’s the safest and most effective way to slow your car into stopping.

Then, by all means, feel free to sue either your car company or snot-nosed little kid.

2. Use red lights and traffic jams to curse, text, and check email.

What does Oprah Winfrey and Representative Doug Holder have in common?

They are both out to save lives lost to distracted-driving. Namely, they want either lawmakers to ban or the people themselves to stop texting or talking on a cell phone (without a headset) while driving.

I appreciate Oprah’s passion to stop senseless deaths, but encouraging people to leave their phones at home? She obviously has never tried to talk Gayle off a ledge after a disastrous diet while two ten year-olds are swinging from the chandelier. Come to think of it, when was the last time she was behind a wheel at all?

If I couldn’t talk in a car, I would immediately lose touch with everyone I know. If we’re going to tackle the issue of drivers not paying attention, why not outlaw toddlers right along with texting? A two-year old with a stuffed toy and attitude is way more distracting than anything my mother is complaining about as I drive down the road.

If you don’t or can’t leave your phone at home because you spend half your life carting kids from school to piano to doctor and back again, buy a headset. This leaves your hands free to maneuver the steering wheel and swat the kid behind you who won’t leave his sister alone.

Wait until the red light or inevitable traffic jam to text your husband about picking up some eggs and butter on the way home.

If we don’t police ourselves, then the professionals will have to do it. And then we’re all screwed.

3. Raise the driving age.

Here is one area that our state governments can get involved and actually help save lives.

Parents of teenagers, after sixteen years of servitude, will complain and send hate mail. They relish the freedom found in life outside their vehicle.

Unfortunately, car accidents are the leading cause of death in teenagers. Children under the age of 18 simply lack the ability to concentrate and make the kind of split-second decisions that driving sometimes requires. When our kids turn eighteen, their brains are only then fully formed and ready to take on the suicidal maniacs of the interstate system, potholes on county roads, and pedestrians dodging traffic on highways all over the state.

Our legislators will say that school districts cannot afford the buses that an older driving age would require. Nonsense. As more of our children die these horrific and preventable deaths, how can we afford not to do something about it?

Let’s keep those texting, drinking, and Jonas Brothers-blaring kids in the passenger seat where they belong.

4. Test older drivers’ sight and driving ability every year after they turn 60.

Seriously. Get grandma off the road and into BINGO where she belongs.

5. Breathe.

Road rage is a terrible thing. Although we all find rubberneckers annoying when they tie up traffic to get a good look at a fender-bender, there is no reason to lose your mind over it.

Turn off Todd Schnitt. Perhaps he’s contributing to your sour mood.

Learn how to take deep breaths and focus on something other than idiot drivers. Will you care in a week that you were late to the newest Jamie Foxx movie? Then you shouldn’t blow a brain cell over it now.

Check out an audio book from the library or keep a stash of your favorite Beatles CDs for such emergencies. There is no reason to take it out on that family in the minivan even if they are slower than molasses in January. It could be your wife or mother in that Oldsmobile with the right blinker on for fifteen miles.

Handle it.

Then put the phone down, keep your head about you, and take those keys away from your favorite teenager.

And safe driving.