Impaired driving is one of the leading causes of car accidents each year. These accidents are preventable, which is why spreading knowledge about how and why this occurs is so necessary. This way people will hopefully learn how important it is to take precautions to avoid impaired driving. Impaired driving can be from alcohol, fatigue, or distractions like phones, eating, or even talking to people in the car with you. People of all ages can be affected by impaired driving, and people other than the impaired driver could also be affected. Many of these accidents can be avoided if people are more aware of these situations, and are able to make better choices. Drivers school is able to teach some of these necessary skills to people, which can help lower the rate of accidents caused by impaired driving. 
  Impaired driving means driving while something is impacting your focus, reaction time, or judgement in a way that could be dangerous to you or to other people. It is sometimes misunderstood because people associate impaired driving with drug or alcohol use, and they fail to realize how other factors like fatigue or texting can easily impair their driving as well. People also overestimate their abilities by assuming they are able to drive and eat or text without being distracted. In addition people may feel like the bad things won’t happen to them, and it has become a cultural norm to not be concerned about impaired driving. 

Being drunk or on drugs are the most common types of impaired driving, but texting is one that is newer because phones have not been around for as long. Texting contributes to unsafe behavior because it involves three kinds of distractions: the first is manual (hands off of the wheel), the second is visual (eyes off the road), and the third is cognitive (mind off driving). This may result in late braking, missed signals, and a general unawareness of the cars around them. Alcohol is one of the most common, and when I think about drunk driving I specifically think about teens and college students, because I associate drunk driving with less knowledgeable or responsible drivers. Alcohol affects driving by slowing down reaction time, reducing coordination, and it affects judgement, concentration, and vision. Driving while drunk leads to more accidents because the impaired drivers are less able to respond to hazards, maintain lane position, and make safe decisions. 

When I was a kid I used to watch “Every 15 Minutes” videos on YouTube that were realistic skits that would show the results of teens driving while drunk. These scenarios would always have passengers that were less drunk than the driver, and usually someone would die. They would show the process of arresting the driver, and telling the teens’ parents about what happened to their kids. Of course at this age I wasn’t able to drive, but I was fascinated with watching these videos. However, they also made me really sad, and I realized how easy it is for someone to die from an impaired driver. I also learned about how the guilt from being the driver that caused harm would stay with you forever. It made me more aware of how common drunk driving accidents are, and it made me think about how many people are frequently driving drunk and believe that nothing could happen to them. When I am behind the wheel I never drive impaired and I always make sure that I am aware of the other drivers around me because even if I am not impaired, I could still get into an accident caused by someone who is driving while drunk. 

One thing that driver education can do to help change attitudes and behaviours around impaired driving is make people more aware of how often these accidents can happen. The more people see the impacts of these accidents, the more concerned they will likely become about something like that happening to them, which could prevent them from driving while impaired. By seeing these accidents or hearing personal stories, the students will likely feel emotional sadness, which is an effective way to change someone's attitude about impaired driving. These programs are effective for real world situations because driving schools often teach people how to plan ahead to avoid impaired driving through designated drivers, or uber/rideshare. It could also teach people to recognise the signs of someone driving while impaired, to be able to influence friends or peers to not drive impaired, and to see the full depth of the consequences that come with driving impaired. 

In order to help prevent impaired driving, I personally could volunteer to be a designated driver for my friends and family, and make sure that people I know are not driving while impaired, and if they are I could help explain to them why it is not a good idea, because of the knowledge I gained by taking driving classes and watching the YouTube skits. I could tell them about some of the stories I was told whenever I took drivers education classes or  I could create a scenario personal to whoever I am talking to to create a more emotional situation for them, which may help them see how bad the consequences of driving impaired could be in a more impactful way. 

While impaired driving is extremely serious it is also a very preventable cause of death. An increase in education and awareness is key for reducing the number of these accidents. Education will help these drivers learn how to make better choices or be more aware of the choices other drivers around them may be making. In order to see real changes in the numbers of these accidents there must be better education programs and cooperation from the individual drivers. Without this there will continue to be “accidents” caused by negligent drivers, so this is why people must work together to help family members and individuals make better choices when it comes to impaired driving.