Just Another Drive to School

January 25^th was going to be a normal day for me and my sister. We were on our way to school, taking the same way that we always do. Less than a mile away from our house, something that we couldn’t even imagined, happened.

I looked down to find the dial to turn the radio up. As I look up, I see a grey blur come from the street to the left of me. I slammed on the brakes, stuck my left arm up to brace myself, and closed my eyes. A man had sped through a stop sign and I caught the blur moving from the left in front of my car.

The collision felt like nothing. I didn’t feel the airbag and my body didn’t ache from any whiplash. As I opened my eyes, I noticed the dust from the airbags, and I heard my sister crying. My initial thought was to see if she was okay, but I didn’t know exactly what to ask. All I can remember is seeing that she was okay from what I could tell and I told her that I was okay. My phone, which was in my jeans pocket was vibrating. It was like I had received 100 notifications at once. This was actually the Life360 app asking if I was in an accident. It gave me three options and I clicked the choice that said I was in an accident, but I was okay.

A bystander called 911, and I was thankful that he helped calm me and my sister down. I had to call my parents, but it was hard to tell that what had happened. Although the accident wasn’t my fault, it is never something that I would want my mom to have to hear or ever worry about again.

Although no one was seriously injured, the accident could have been a lot worse. If I was speeding, I would have been further down the road and the man would have hit my side of the car. Along with that, if I wasn’t focused on the music, I would have been able to have more reaction time for the car flying by.

Although these are just two examples on how this accident could have be avoided, this can be the case for many others. Paying careful attention to the road at all times is important, even if it is an area that you are very familiar with. Reducing distractions for the driver will ultimately reduce the number of accidents, serious or minor accidents in general. However, the quietest ring, buzz, or vibration is enough for most drivers to take their focus off of the road and direct it towards the device in their hand. Being attentive goes past what is happening inside of the car. Looking both ways is commonly used when at stop signs and red lights. However, I encourage it to be used when crossing all intersections, even if you have the right away. Although I picked up on this post-accident, I do feel as if it has made me a better and more cautious driver. A road with more cautious drivers is a better road.

Although I mentioned the negatives of having a tempting electronic in your car, they do have positives. The mobile app, Life360, has many features that help keep the road safe. The app counts phone usage, high speed, hard braking, rapid acceleration, GPS tracking, and crash detection, which did send out an alert during our accident. Although this app works better with families and their children, I always know to watch my speed because my parents could always check it while I am driving. This app makes me think, “Would I drive like this if my parents were in the car?” As for the crash detection, a notification is sent to the groups that you are a part of, telling them your status after the crash. These are just many practices that I can think of looking back at my own experience to better the driving for myself and others around me. Yet, these are only taught once or twice to most drivers.

The last time that many drivers learn the “rules of the road” is in either driver’s education, or whenever they get their driver’s license. After I graduated driver’s ed, I have never had to take another test to prove my retention of knowledge. Granting this was only a couple of years ago for me, years and decades for other drives have passed without another test of their road knowledge. Keeping and growing knowledge is a practice used in many aspects in life and should also be applied to driving safety.

Given that experts still make mistakes every day, it should still be expected that drivers will too. However, by utilizing safe practices and an improvement in the driver education system, an improvement in overall driving will be seen and accidents will become less common. I continue to apply many of the principles that I listed above. For many, and myself, it takes an accident to realize how important that they can be. With the improvement and reiteration of driver’s education across all ages, hopefully, that will not be the case.