A Quote from State of the World 2012

Part of my discussion for the class was to find a quote from our book. This quote really stood out to me and I wanted to include it in my journal.

PG 58-59 "Currently, more than 1.2 million people are killed and 50 million injured each year on the world's roads."

In our book, there was a statistic that shows how many hundreds of thousands of people die each year in car related accidents. 1.2 million to be more specific. That’s right, a whopping 1, 200 000 people. SO that’s pretty much wiping out the entire population of Maine, or Hawaii, or New Hampshire. Yeah, an entire state can be sacrificed in return for the 1.2 million people that die. And that statistic isn’t within 10 years, 5 years, not even 3 years. That’s 1.2 million people EVERY SINGLE YEAR. Speeding is the number one cause for traffic related incidents on the roads. So you know when you’re driving and you are disgusted by seeing a police officer hiding in the bushes with his radar on? Well, he’s actually saving your life, and thousands of others. I know that their tactics work. Throughout my first two years of driving I sped constantly, on the highways doing at least 80+ MPH. Thankfully I was never involved in an accident (knocks on wood). However, I received about 3 speeding related tickets within two years. Now I drive at the speed limit, or slightly above it, because I now understand what the consequences of speeding are. I’m lucky that the consequences I had to face were only a ticket and not something worse like death or a hospital visit for myself or someone else. Other than not speeding, everyone can take part in safer driving habits by driving more defensively instead of aggressive - stop riding bumpers! Arriving somewhere 10 minutes earlier is not worth the aggravation and danger you put yourself and others in. It's never worth it. It is important to enforce stricter laws regarding aggressive driving habits because I see it on a daily basis, especially in Southwest Florida with all of the college students driving back and forth to and from school and on I-75.