I was having a chat with my friends online and in our conversation we mentioned the movie 100 ways to die and in the conversation, I mentioned that there are some other things that we do that we do not take serious. You see, there are a lot of things that can send people to their early graves compared to those things you see in a movie especially in movies that have to do with Apocalypse.
First the chances that you would die of a natural disaster or a terror attack is very low. The majority of the cause of death are as a result of micro decisions made by us that we do not take into consideration because we believe they are normal. Unlike terror attacks, there is a high chance of having an accident and dying from a motorcycle because motorcycle makes of 14% of all traffic death. The things that are mostly likely to kill us are things that feel safe or things we believe we are good at. With a car, then the chances increases because car accident accounts for 59% of all traffic death.
Talking about road accident, I always tell a friend that a lot of road users should not be allowed to drive on the road and their license revoked. This is because in so many cases they do not follow the rules, some of them even just flex their muscles claiming to be invisible and this is a fast way to lose ones life. 30% of car accidents worldwide is caused by speeding and this is usually because they feel invisible. With speed comes low reaction time as well as little time to act on the impulse.
When I drive on the road, I usually tell whoever is my partner in the car that if stop for just 2 minutes, I will see that cars that I overtook while running will meet me and anytime I put it to a test, it usually come out to be so. If destination will require 20 minutes at a speed of 100Km/h, a speed increase of 115Km/h will not make much changes because it will only save less than 3 minutes from the entire time but when driving at this high speed, the probability of dying from a crash is increased by 60%.
We aren't leaving the driving scene anytime soon because 25% of driving accident is associated to being drunk. You see, drinking and driving is another thing that we do a lot and while we think we are still in our normal self, alcohol interferes with our cognition, as well as our thought of reasoning, so this means that with alcohol, it will be easier to get into an accident without fully knowing that you have gotten into one because while you think you are doing everything right, you are going to be breaking the traffic laws from the dot to the tee. See, you do not need to feel drunk before you start to have slowed reaction time, you just need to have a cup or two.
Another thing that can lead to untimely death easily is being easily distracted while driving. There is one thing I always tell my cousin which he doesn't listen and that is always using his phone while driving. He feels untouchable, like a superman and he is very confident in his skills but when I talk to him, I let him understand that mistakes of a split second can make him look like he doesn't know what he is doing because he will be distracted and distraction is dangerous while driving. I explained to him that if he knew how many electric poles he had passed within the few seconds in spent checking his phone, he would know he is putting both our lives in danger whenever I am in the car with him.
Remember I said we were not done with driving yet, yes. You see, another reason why people will die from a car accident is not putting on seat belt. This is even worse when the car doesn't have an airbag. This can lead to a lot of untimely death which isn't usually the fault of the passenger in the car instead that of the driver but then, when it happens, we do not share the blame, we share the pain.
Reference
https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/road-traffic-injuries
https://www.forbes.com/advisor/legal/motorcycle-accident-statistics/
https://platform.who.int/mortality/themes/theme-details/MDB/all-causes
https://www.nhtsa.gov/book/countermeasures-that-work/motorcycle-safety
https://afdc.energy.gov/data/10309
https://www.who.int/publications/i/item/managing-speed
https://crashstats.nhtsa.dot.gov/Api/Public/ViewPublication/813313
https://www.rospa.com/rospaweb/docs
https://platform.who.int/mortality/about/about-the-who-mortality-database
https://platform.who.int/mortality/themes/theme-detail
https://www.who.int/initiatives/SAFER/drink-driving
https://road-safety.transport.ec.europa.eu/news-events