Persuasive Writing

As my thoughts were wandering today about the papers we right and the beliefs that we stand for I was wondering, when we put these down on paper, does it really persuade? Does it really make a difference? Are words so powerful? I do believe that words are. Words can change anything and everything, if, and only if they are used correctly. Thinking about my classical argument I was considering changing my topic because of what I saw this morning. I drive from Mapleton to school every day and for those of you who take the freeway and take the exit that's right by UVU and walmart to get to UVU, you'll understand the issue I see. You come off the freeway and the off ramp is quite long until it turns and flows into traffic going east. Now as many of you know, and perhaps you are the ones doing this, people will stop in the middle of the road. They'll just stop. And block traffic because they need to cross over three lanes to get over and turn left into UVU. And I'm pretty sure these drivers are morons if they think they can do this and not cause serious consequences. They stop traffic and that traffic backs up quickly until eventually it backs up to the freeway.
Today I turned onto the exit and immediately slammed on my brakes and was lucky enough not to hit the car in front of me that was completely stopped and luckily I likewise wasn't hit. Unfortunately a few drivers weren't so lucky. Looking in my side mirror I watched as a car hit or was hit and a chunk of what looked like their front light went flying, spraying the road with flecks of glass. They immediately came to a halt. and I watched as traffic began to stop in the slow lane of the freeway and that same car that just caused an accident was almost smashed by an oncoming van. As I pulled into UVU I wondered how many other cars were just piling up and causing a giant traffic jam or if that same car was still sitting in the middle of the freeway, or what. I knew that there was bound to be a wreck sooner or later because of the idiots who stop the traffic flow because they think it's their one and only chance to get over and turn into UVU. In case someone in this class is one of those people. There is an alternative. You can turn right, and flip a U-turn right by the first turn into the Walmart parking lot! Or you can turn left one more light up. It's pretty simple, if you stop traffic, then wrecks will happen.
As I was considering writing about bad driving I wondered really, if I was to publish an article at some point about reckless driving, would anyone really change their driving habits? Would I be persuasive enough to change at least one driver for better?
How often are opinion changed from reading an article? I probably wouldn't change many drivers if I called them idiots, even if that is how I think of them. But how often do you guys read an article and find your opinion changed either a small change or a major one? How powerful is the written language really?