To introduce driving to the school curriculum is viewed to save 400 lives yearly on the roads in the United Kingdom (UK). This is a proposal that’s currently backed up by a petition which has been launched to support it.

This is also being supported by the country’s major motoring organisations that include the RAC, the Institute of Advanced Motorists (IAM), the Driving Instructor’s Association (DIA) and the Association of British Insurers.

The petition which was initiated by Young Driver doesn’t want the legal age of driving to be lowered from 17 years old but instead wants driving to be taught to school children at a younger age.

The supporters of this proposal said it would help save the lives of this most vulnerable group, because by providing them driving lessons in the classroom and practical driving courses, they will become safe and responsible drivers in the future.

The proposal’s other benefit would be to decrease the number of fatal road accidents involving young people travelling in the vehicles being driven by other young people at 17 to 24 years old. There’s a 25 per cent of all road fatalities in the UK involve passengers and drivers aged 15 to 19 years old.

Kim Stanton, who comes from Young Drivers’ group, has explained that driving a car is one of the most dangerous and responsible things a person can do in his or her lifetime. Learning the driving lessons must be done longer than the usual period of time, and it should be taught when road safety messages could be absorbed easily by the school children at young age.

A study showed that messages on road safety are well absorbed by children in their early age rather than at their driving age. By having this taking place at school it could be made inclusive for all. So the group is urging the people to sign this petition so that it can have the power to change things.

The high number of road accidents and the sad loss of lives as the result of unprepared young drivers really need to be tackled. Because it has been viewed obviously that the driving education that our young children are receiving is inadequate.

Learning such an essential skill shouldn’t be dusted and done in a few months. That’s why it has been strongly believed that the people should sign this petition and get the proposal debated in Britain’s House of Commons.

So, the government is now being prompted to add driving lessons to the national curriculum due to this petition which has been backed up by major motoring organisations. The basis of the proposal is the statistics that one in every five new drivers has an accident in the first six months behind the steering wheel after they passed their driving test.

Obviously, the proposal is an attempt to push the government not to lower down the legal driving age of 17 years old, instead, it should introduce a road safety tuition and mandatory driving lessons to the schools in order to give those children approaching their driving age the needed information on driving.

The authorities are just concerned for your own and other road users’ safety and advantage because if you continue your carelessness at wheel, you’re definitely heading to a fatal road accident. Be aware that many of these road accidents have been unfortunately caused by nothing more than distracted drivers on the road.

Distracted driving has been caused by anything that diverts the driver’s eyes from the road or your mind from safe driving or your hands from the steering wheel. There are also instances that road accident happens as the driver is reaching into the back seat to get a gadget such as cell phone.
So, the increased cell phone use and texting whilst behind the wheel has contributed to the many car accidents. Because even a momentary lapse in driving concentration caused by using the device whilst at wheel will already decrease the driver’s ability to react or avoid a hazardous road condition ahead.

So, a technology came to resolve or minimise the problem. According to the company, SensoFoil, there are membrane potentiometres used as voltage dividers consisting of several layers separated by a spacer. The layers have been connected to each other through magnetic or mechanical pressure. Then the pressure sensitive ink creates resistance between the plastic thin layers.

Other possible life-saving use of the technology is designing it for the car steering wheels so that it would be capable to detect how tightly the wheel is being gripped by the driver, consequently identifying when the concentration of the driver is slipping.

Driver’s grip the steering wheel or move his or her hands across it could be detected by the system, and so the absence of such movements suggesting that the driver has become ill of heart failure, etc. or already fallen asleep could be responded immediately.
Because in response to such changes, an alert from the system would be triggered to restore immediately the driver’s concentration or prompt him or her to take a rest.
Then, if you’re a safe and responsible driver, with the thought, appreciation and confidence of the quality, preciseness or perfection of the technology, the fact that you really spent your money for it, then you really have to heed the warning, so you must stop driving and take a rest.

Currently in Europe, there’s one international manufacturing company, Guttersberg Consulting, that owns the licensing and marketing rights to this hands-on detection system. So, what a good idea that there’s now the better uses of electronics in cars.

So, being a careful and competent driver, you may now consider to have this technology in your car even if you think yourself as one of the most skilled and safe driver in the world. Submitting yourself to a very useful and life-saving technology could manifest your professionalism up in a higher level and thus increasing safety in our roads and motorways.