Safety

I hate bad drivers! Cars are dangerous. People die in car accidents. Most accidents are caused by people who are either driving too fast, or in many cases not paying enough attention to the situation.


When I am out walking with my wife and daughter, I am always watching other people to make sure they do not run into my daughter, who is a baby in a push chair. Cars often pull in front of us when we are trying to cross a street, when they should be giving way. Sometimes they drive the wrong way down a one-way street near the supermarket we go to.


I recently had an idea about how to deal with these drivers. I think we should make a note of the license plate on the back of their car, report the car to the police, tell the police what the driver did, where they did it, what day and what time AND THEN the police could have a big board in front of the trains station with a notice about the bad drivers who have been reported. They could put this at other public places around the town too; the library, the town hall etc. This way, people would recognize their own license plate number and feel ashamed of their actions. They would worry about friends, family, neighbours, co-workers etc seeing their license plate number on the board and knowing they did something bad. We could use shame to make them more considerate drivers.


I think we should also use this for bicycles. Every bicycle should have a license plate on the back, which people should have to apply for in order to ride a bicycle. If they do something bad, we could report them and they would be shamed on the wall. If they are reported a certain number of times, they should lose their right to ride a bicycle or drive a car!


Maybe you think that I am being too harsh. Maybe we should have some tolerance for people who drive badly because their mistakes are small. NO! If we do not stop these bad drivers, they will just get worse. We have all seen terrible stories on the news about people who crash their cars and kill innocent people. We have to realize that these people do not just become bad drivers overnight. They have a long history of bad driving. They have probably committed many small driving errors just like the ones we are talking about now. If we shame them in public for driving badly, we can stop them from getting worse and stop them from causing some terrible accident in the future.


We must think more about safety! Recently I was changing trains at a station that had two train lines. As my train arrived, the train I wanted to get on also arrived on the other track. Everyone, including me ran off our train to try to get to the other train. Some people were fast enough to get on the new train before the doors closed, but some were not. I wondered why the train company did not try to have the train wait for a minute so everyone could change trains without running. It seems like such a simple thing to do. I am sure that there must be some accidents sometimes, with people running into each other or falling over. It is the train company's responsibility to make sure these things do not have a chance to happen.


It might sound like I am being too fussy. Maybe you want to say "shouganai" BUT imagine you were walking around everywhere with a little baby you have to protect and take care of, or with a pregnant woman who can't move so quickly. In these situations, you start to think more about safety. Every day, there is a pregnant woman somewhere getting on a train or walking down the street. Every day a parent with a small child has to travel somewhere and worries about the dangers of the world caused by other people's carelessness. That is why we must pay more attention to these issues and stop saying "shoganai" - nothing is "shoganai" if you try hard enough!

▼▽▼▼【講師】Eddie先生のバックナンバー━━━━━━━━
・【International Friendship】2009.10.02 (Fri)