In the United States of America, all living citizens have a significant number of rights. We have the right to vote, the right to practice religion, the right to bear arms, and the right to express ourselves. We do NOT, however, have the right to own and drive a vehicle of our choice. If you're expecting me to say "it's time we change that" or "I think now's a good time to make it a law" you are sorely mistaken. While I do have my disaggrements with Congress, I applaud them for sticking to their guns and never making it the law of the land for every U.S. citizen to be able to own or drive a care. As controversial as it may sound, I earnestly believe we need to restrict access to automobile ownership like we've been trying to do the same for gun ownership.
Driving in the United States hasn't always been a thing, unlike all the other rights in the Constitution. The first automobile, the Benz Motor Car, was patented in 1886, with units being sold within the first 20 or so years. By the time cars swept the nation in the early 1920s, it had already been 150 years since we became a nation. In that time, manny laws were passed and ammended to suit the needs of the American people. When it came to cars, however, things got complicated. See, like the locomotive before it, cars had this one problem that made it evidently clear that this wasn't to be a right. Everybody wanted a car, but not everyone was responsible enough to own one.
Car accidents, while they're common place now, they're not a recent phenomenon. In 1896, a bicyclist was hit by a car in New York City. This was the first of countless instances in which operators of motor vehicles abused their ownership of a car to cause harm or death to an innocent bystander, whether it was intentional or not. The first state to recognize the dangers of motor vehicles was Connecticut and on May 21, 1901, the state passed the first automobile regulation law in the nation. This law, An Act of Regulating the Speed of Motor Vehicles, stated that no motor vehicle was permitted to go over 15 miles per hour on the highway or any place outside city limits, or 20 miles per hour on the highway or any where within city limits. A valiant effort, but it wasn't enough to prevent accidents. To do that, would be drivers need to be taught the rules and regulations of the road.
Driver's education and training began in the United Kingdom in 1909, but for the United States it started as a high school class course in 1934. Created by Amos Neyhart, this course taught students the rules, regulations and history of automobiles which still apply to this very day. While getting a driver's license was nothing new at the time (the first one being issued in 1899), taking a driver's ed class became mandatory for a license in the mid 20th century. It was also during this time when new laws were passed that regulated automobile operation for drinking, running a red light, abusing your car horn and manny more. Ideally this would make our more responsible and car accidents would be at an all time low. Yeah, unfortunately that's not even close to the world we live in.
In 2020, yes the same year we had to stay indoors due to the pandemic, 38,824 people lost their lives in a car accident. To put that into perspective, that's almost the same amount of people that live in my one horse town I call home. The circumstances of these accidents differ, from distracted driving, drinking, a tire blowing out, a pot hole sneaking up on them or an animal lacking common sense before crossing. The one thing they all have in common, though, is that the driver is at fault for not following the rules of the road and not being responsible. I'm well aware nobody's perfect, believe me I know I'm not. That said, perferction and responsibility are NOT the same thing. Being perfect means you have no need to be responsible for the rest of your life because things always work out. Being responsible means you take full ownership of your actions and reactions. You see a pot hole, you go around it. Your tires blow out, you pull over and call a tow truck. You have alcohol in your system, don't get in the bloody driver's seat. With the prescene of the Internet, there's now no such thing as "wElL i DiDn'T kNoW." It's your responsibility to prepare for what's to come on the road. It's your responsibility to avoid hazards on the road. It's your responsibility to stay out of other people's blind spots. If you hit someone or something on the road, there's no one to blame except yourself.
And there are real people out there who think driving should be a right and not a privileged. In case you haven't been paying attention, let me spell it out for you. If you need to be taught how to do something, you don't automatically have the right to do it. You don't have to be taught to express yourself, practice religion or vote. You also won't go to jail for expressing something negative, affiliating yourself with a controversial religion or voting for a politician that made very bad choices. Driving and owning a car shouldn't be a right because you don't have to work for your rights. You don't have to take a test and get a license to express yourself. On top of all that, if driving was a right, than all the laws that regulate and restrict it would be unconstitutional, thus causing more car accidents and deaths than their already are. You know what we should do, instead? Add more restrictions and car laws, like what we're trying to do with guns. There should be a law that forbid people prone to anger and violence from owning a vehicle. There should also be a failsafe installed in all vehicles that makes the car not turn on if the driver has alcohol in their system. More laws like this are guaranteed to save lives and make driver's think twice before making stupid mistakes.
As someone who's in the process of becoming an official driver, seeing car accident after car accident makes me want to puke up my internal organs. I don't think the rules of the road are hard to follow, nor are they confusing when you read them thoroughly. I also don't think it's hard to responsible behind the road and be a decent driver. Ignorance is not an excuse in the age of the Internet and there is not "iT's NoT mY fAuLt" when there's over a hundred ways to avoid an accident. If you want to learn how to drive, here's the most important lesson for you to learn: it takes less effort to be responsible than it does turning the ignition. And don't gimme any of that "driving should be a right" malarkey. Your thinking druving is easy is not even close to being a good enough resaon to make it a right. Here's a right for you: I have the right to tell you that you have NO right to be a driver, especially if you're mentally unstable. Don't like it? Tough bananas -.-