No matter how convenient driving is, it is also dangerous. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration reports that over 75-percent of drivers have reported being in a car accident at least once throughout their lifetime.

The solution isn’t necessarily to get rid of your car! Instead, you should look for ways to make driving safer. Surprisingly, that means keeping your car organized.

Without an organized car, items can become flying debris in the event of an accident. Items can also be distracting, if what you need falls to the floor or becomes lost between the seats.

If you want to stay safe behind the wheel, follow these tips that include:

• Have a container for garbage
• Pick a place for your purse
• Hang shoe organizers on the backs of the front seats
• Compartmentalize the trunk
• Stick shower caddies to the windows

Have a Container For Garbage

From driving back and forth to work to taking the kids to practice and picking up something to eat real quick in the drive-thru, trash is common in the car. However, that garbage can also be dangerous. Empty water bottles can roll underneath your brake pedal, while receipts and food wrappers can blow around in the cabin when you roll the windows down.

Don’t throw your trash out the window, and don’t let it blow out the window on accident! Instead, keep a container for garbage in your car. It can be something as simple as a small plastic bag in the backseat or you can use something like a cereal container. That way, all your trash is in one place and can be thrown away easily.

Pick a Place For Your Purse

It’s annoying when your purse falls and empties all over the floor, but it can be dangerous too. If you’re trying to reach your purse after it falls in the backseat or you’re looking for your phone that fell out and onto the floor, the distraction can easily cause an accident.

Keep this from happening by picking a place for your purse. Use a car cache that fits between the front seats so you can keep your purse in place, hang a hook from the back of the headrest, or make it a point to zip your purse and put it on the floor of the car.

Hang Shoe Organizers on the Backs of the Front Seats

If you have kids or you drive friends and family around in your car a lot, you should consider hanging shoe organizers on the backs of the front seats. Everything from tissues to bottles of water can be placed in the compartments so they don’t spend the entire trip asking you where to find a snack.

They are especially helpful on road trips. Toys, snacks, books, and electronics can be placed in hanging organizers, easily within reach of little hands in the backseat so you don’t have to pull over to find what they’re looking for.

Stick Shower Caddies to the Windows

Not only are behind-the-seat shoe organizers handy on road trips, so are shower caddies! Those little plastic trays with suction cups are the perfect way to keep things like crayons, beads, and other items within arm’s reach so kids can entertain themselves on long road trips.

They are handy to have in the backseat even if you aren’t on a road trip! Keep things like hair ties, tissues, gum, and more in the backseat so passengers can grab things easily. It makes it easy for you to grab something too. When you park the car, you can open the back door and grab something real quick! Just be sure that they are stuck firmly incase of a crash or build-up of heat from the sun behind the suction cup!

Compartmentalize the Trunk

Keeping the cabin clean and tidy is important to a safe drive, but don’t forget your trunk. It can get out of control quickly, and before you know it, you don’t have room to put your groceries!

There are many trunk organizers to choose from that will help you keep things tidy. Most have separate sections in the container for items, but they also have pockets on the front that are perfect for things like plastic bags, maps, and tools. With lids, you can place some items on top of containers while they are in the trunk, but it also makes it easy to remove the container from the trunk when checking into a hotel or going on a picnic.

Don’t let your car become a wasteland of garbage and lost items! Keep everyone entertained and comfortable while making it safer to drive by keeping your car organized with these tips.