A teachable moment

A recent newspaper article reported on a fatal highway crash in Arkansas where a young driver turned left into the path of an oncoming semi-truck. A review of highway crashes will find that both younger and older drivers are over-involved in intersection and driveway crashes. Further, Highway Safety research on human-factors involvement in highway intersection crashes found that the primary contributing factor is related to the development of a portion of the human brain in younger and older drivers.

The frontal lobe of the human brain which processes how far away an approaching vehicle is and, more importantly, how fast that vehicle is approaching is not fully developed in younger drivers until they are in their early 20s. That same frontal brain lobe begins to and continues to function less effectively when we become senior drivers.

Parents and Driver Education teachers need to share this with our younger drivers and teach these drivers to wait for larger gaps in approaching traffic before turning in front of an approaching vehicle or crossing highways. We older drivers need to learn that same lesson, and this lesson needs to be included in AARP driver education classes. Everyone else needs to drive very defensively if they approach an intersection and see a young or older driver stopped on the side road.

I ask that all drive safely, as the life you save may be mine!

TOM WELCH

Fairfield Bay