Mara B Felix AC1110103 EN 120 – English Composition Lesson 8 Assignment 4 2. Road Rage The article Road Rage explains how American’s attitudes changes once they are behind the staring wheel of a car. They become very irritated when the person in front of them is driving to slow or if someone cuts in from of them on the freeway. Thanks to this article, now I know that the number of road rage has increase rapidly. “Incidents of “road rage” were up 51% in the first half of the decade, according to a report from the AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety,” writes Andrew Ferguson in Road Rage (553).
The drinking age should not be lowered to 18. Lowering the drinking age from 21 years old to 18 years old could lead to an increase in dangerous behavior such as drunken driving and car accidents, risk of developing alcoholism and people under the age of 21 do not fully understand the dangers of alcohol. A teenage driver and alcohol is a dangerous combination. Drinking and driving accidents are the number one cause of death among teenagers. “Traffic deaths from drunken driving have fallen steadily, with those involving teenagers 16 to 19 declining by 39.1 percent from 1982 to 1990, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA)”.
In fact, the likelihood that the driver will get into an automobile accident is just the same as someone who has a blood alcohol level of .08 percent, which is when a person is legally intoxicated. Ten states have already banned the use of hand-held phones and 35 states have banned texting while driving. Experts have always compared distracted driving while drunk driving but they are saying a better comparison is smoking, because Americans have an addiction and feel the need to be connected at all times (Matt
During the 1970’s reports showed that teenage car accidents increased in states where the MLDA had been lowered from 21 years old. This in turn prompted Congress to help alleviate the problem by passing the National Minimum Drinking Age Act of 1984. Although the federal government has no constitutional basis for setting a MLDA, it has
De Soto list several fatal and non-fatal accidents cases from New York to Washington State from texting while driving. De Soto states this is one the most dangerous epidemics on today’s highway, more dangerous than drunk driving. De Soto states that of the 21 states in America that have passed laws on texting while driving, only Alaska and Utah have fines that match the same fines as drunk driving. Most texting while driving laws are “lax” on penalties. De Soto states that the penalties for texting while driving should bring significant monetary fines, points on offenders record and loss of driving privileges like that of drunk driving laws.
I believe the typical 16 year old doesn’t have the maturity level that is needed to be behind the wheel of a car unsupervised. The amount of deaths that are caused by teenage drivers are very high, and are still increasing because no changes have been made. There are about 15 deaths per day from car accidents between the ages of 15-20. ( Teen Driving). Teens also account for 14% of all driving fatalities that occur.
The second solution would be to remove all the speed limits from all lanes, as it has been done in Europe for many years, and rely on the driving skills of the motorists. Although the above solutions may ease the speed limit complications that drivers are experiencing daily in US freeways there is always a high probability of accidents. It is acknowledged by the United States Department of Labor, Occupational Safety and Health Administration that “Every 12 minutes someone dies in a motor vehicle crash, every 10 seconds an injury occurs and every 5 seconds a crash occurs. Many of these accidents occur during the workday or during the commute to and from work” (USDL). (Cite Web-site) Therefore, by keeping the speed limit in the US freeways the way they are set up today, people are not able to get to their destinations on time because no one moves fast enough causing stress, tension to motorists, and more accidents.
Safer Driving for Senior Citizen Amy Allen Bryant and Stratton PHIL250: Practices in Analytical Thinking J.R. Kuntz October 24, 2012 Senior citizen drivers are putting themselves and others in danger when driving. Studies show that drivers at the age of 80 and older are involved in more fatal car crashes, as much as 5.5 times, as middle aged drivers (Risky Drivers, 2012). This is not because they are dangerous and reckless drivers. In fact, senior citizen drivers are more likely to follow the rules of the road, but it is due to declines in their motor skills, vision, perceptual and cognitive abilities that cause accidents to occur (National Highway Traffic Safety Administration [NHTSA], 2005). Because of their declining health, I feel that educational services need to be offered, more friendly vehicles for senior citizens need to be made, and easier to read traffic signs should be made and more efficiently placed.
However, this also proves to be a deadly distraction while using a cell phone while operating a motor vehicle. So far this year in the United States, there has been an estimated amount of over 500,000 crashes involving drivers using cell phones and texting. (Council, 2011) With the growing number of electronic devices deployed over the last decade, these new devices provide an even greater opportunity for distraction and growing the risks that are attributed to more and more crashes and fatalities. According to a study conducted at the University of Utah by Professor David Straver, drivers who talk on a
Many tests were performed by David L. Strayer of the University of Utah. During these tests the drivers using cellular phones were found to have 18% slower reaction time, following distance was 12% larger, and they took 17% longer to regain the speed that was lost after breaking (Strayer 6). Strayer also found that the participants in one study using cellular phones while driving were more than twice as likely to miss traffic signals than if they were not using a cellular device (Strayer 6). Redelmeir and Tibshirani researched the cellular records of 699 different people involved in accidents. They found that 24% of the people were using their cellular phones within 10 minutes before their accident (Qtd.