There’s always something you should remember when driving: Driving is a privilege not a right. However, accidents still occur often, due to reckless driving. Accidents on highways, like Route 4, are especially frequent. People are taking advantage of their driving privileges and are causing injuries and deaths of many innocent people.

Before driving, people have to take a driver’s knowledge test and participate in 6 hours of driving instruction in order to get their permit at the age of 16.  Afterwards, they may get their Probationary License, as long as they pass their road test at the age of 17. Finally, when they’re 18, they get their full license. So, the question is, if the DMV makes everyone go through these steps to become an eligible driver, why are there still so many accidents occurring?

Sometimes, accidents are unintentional. For example, this year, a Glen Rock middle schooler got hit by a car while walking to school in the morning. Neither the kid nor the driver were completely to blame, however they both should have been more careful about seeing each other on the road.

Most of the time, accidents are mainly the driver’s fault because the person is either distracted looking at their cell phone, driving too fast, or drunk.

According to Edgar Snyder & Associates, almost 330,000 injuries happen due to texting while driving, which is more likely to cause accidents than drunk driving. People shouldn’t be thinking about using their cell phones to text or Snapchat at the wheel because it distracts them from what’s really important: focusing on the road.

Drunk driving is nearly as bad and can cause more accidents at times.  

According to a recent article on New York Times, a man named Richard Rojas, who was under the influence of PCP, drove his car straight through Times Square and killed an 18 year old woman and injured 22 people.

Because of his reckless driving, a lot of people were injured and unfortunately, one of them died. I think that it’s ironic that many people know the rules of the road, but decide to disobey them and abuse their driving privileges.

It’s unfair for anyone to be injured or killed because of people who don’t follow the rules and drive carelessly. Why are people like Rojas on the road, continuing to break the rules of driving and harming innocent people in the process?
A privilege is not something anyone can have. It’s a special right that goes out to people that can be trusted. Most people don’t seem to understand that. That’s why so many accidents occur. Therefore, people need to be cautious when driving on the road and should not be on their cell phones nor should they under the influence of drugs or alcohol while driving to prevent accidents from happening.