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Old 10-04-2012, 05:05 PM   #3
beautiful_seclusion
 
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Join Date: Sep 2010
Location: U.S.
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I hate how they use scare tactics like that. They don't work for people who are going to be reckless anyway, and they scare people like you who would be safe.

I think it's important to remember like said that those are VERY rare circumstances. It's also helpful to realize that the vast majority of fatal accidents are due to not wearing a seat belt. A lot of accidents are also due to intoxication, as well as inattention. So if you don't drive intoxicated, distracted, wear a seat belt, and drive defensively (meaning you watch out for other people and don't expect them to drive correctly), your chances of a fatal or horrific accident go tremendously down. You could just as easily get hurt/killed some other way when you choose to be a safe driver, which it sounds like you are.

Perhaps though it would be useful to look up statistics so you can actually see numbers of how much using your seatbelt, etc. helps lower your chances? That was actually very helpful for me when explaining to people that I ride a motorcycle. I'll show you the statistics to see how you can be careful without being fearful and greatly reduce risk. While it obviously has a higher risk than a car, when I tell people that in 50% of motorcycle accidents the motorcyclist was impaired, 50% also involved an inexperienced motorcyclist (less than 6 months), and 95% of motorcycle accidents are caused by 6 things a motorcyclist can actively change in their riding habits, and I wear a full face helmet and other safety gear, even the most anti-motorcycle people tend to start being less fearful of me riding. And all those are things that are pretty simple for me to do. I just need to be sensible, not paranoid, and I'm pretty unlikely to end up in a fatal or extremely serious crash. The same applies to a car.

So hope that helped at all. I'm sorry you had such a bad course, but just know that you can avoid that happening for the most part. As for the gore, just realize that it was not representative of most car accidents and that it was meant to scare reckless people, not sensible people like you. The driving course I went through was taught by an ex cop. And he'd only seen 25 fatal accidents in his entire career, and only one of those was wearing a seat belt. So it's not like the gore is standard fare for accidents. So maybe seeing it as unrealistic would help, since you're a safe driver the chances are low enough to make it unrealistic. If thinking it through doesn't get rid of the fear though, you might consider talking to someone about it, whether a mentor or counselor, and see if they have any better ideas.



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