Driving is an extremely dangerous action that we tend to take for granted. Automobiles have the ability to go fast enough to kill any species of land animal on the planet, especially humans. But many wield the power of an automobile without regard for the actual danger and harm it can cause. Not only do we do this, we often bost about our transgressions on the road. Every single day I hear people talk about how close they came to swerving off the road, or how fast they were speeding to get to school on time. Especially in my state of Wisconsin, which is often cited as the drunkest state in the US with 26% of adults engaging in excessive drinking, the idea of impaired driving under the influence is normalized to many people. We treat driving and all its dangers with to much levity when we should be treating it with much more asperity. 

We treat the danger of drive with little discretion, and an example of this is how often people are impaired while driving, and how often it is ignored. Driving impaired can mean a myriad of things, it doesn't just mean driving drunk or high, though as I said earlier, that is significantly more common than it should be. means anything that would lead you to fully forget you are driving a one ton hunk of metal. An example of this would be texting, if you text and drive, your focus is no longer on the road and all in on whatever message you are trying to read and or send. Drunk or drousy driving easily falls into this catagory, you're to intoxicated or exhausted to recognize how erratic you are driving. Even listening to music to loud can be dangerous, if you are to focused on jamming out to a song with buddies, it's really easy to forget to slow down for a sharp turn. The most common form of distracted and impaired driving however, definitly comes from using our phones. Texting and driving is extremely common, I have been in many peoples cars and watched them text and drive while I am in the passenger seat. I have also seen overuse of music connected to our phone can be dangerous as it leads to us usually averting our eyes from the road to change something about the song or playlist they were listening to, which is never worth the risk. But this all the things I just mentioned are standard amonst the population and it leads to a significant increase in danger on the road. A good driver should drive without distractions, but a large proportion of drivers still do. We still don't treat driving with as much weight it deserves. 
I think everyone has a story of either them, or someone close to them getting hurt, killed, or nearly killed in an accident, that is how dangerous driving really is. My story is one that deeply wounded the small town I live in. About two and a half years ago, a middle school girl was killed, one of my friends younger sisters. She was killed by an at the time high school senior who was texting and driving and completely oblivious to her and the bus she was trying to get onto. The incident sent shockwaves through the community, and for a while, you could see change. People would stop texting and driving because they would remember what happened to that little girl. Eventually though, they got back into their usual habbits. But I never forgot this incident, it happened only a brief time before I got my own lisence and galvinized my behavior to never text and drive. I saw the danger of not treating driving as a constant potential danger. 
America is a car based culture who loves to drive inadequetly, but we can change that. We need to change people perspective on driving. Drivers education is a great place to start. We need to adequetly solitify the idea that driving impaired is an extreme danger, and we need to provide examples. Every new driver should have it drilled into their mind that if they are not thinking about the road while driving, then they are as dangerous as flailing a gun around with the safety off. And we need to change how we talk about it on a personal level. If someone mentions dangerous driving habits, don't encourage it. I feel like in our society a lot of people take pride in driving in horrendus conditions in the worst way possible but still making it to a location. If someone is doing this, call them out on it. You don't have to be rude, but just telling them that its not okay, its just irresponsible and dangerous. As long as its done in a way that comes across as genuine concern, then it usually helps. 
We handle driving with to much levity. I have personal expierence with people driving impaired, and in some cases boasting about it. I have met people who will openly discuss driving while drunk, high, or extremely tired like its a hobby. We have watched internal car distractions like texting and friends lead to hundreds of tradgedies. And We have failed to combat this rot within our car culture. We need to instigate change by acting at high levels, like education, but also at low levels, call your friends out if they are driving like a moron. We need to respect the dangers of driving.