Lessons from a Fender Bender

As
I was leaving tennis practice one day, I was driving my brother’s
pickup truck. It was a gorgeous day and I’d just enjoyed an
afternoon of practice with my team. I stopped at the stop sign, ready
to exit the parking lot and waited for a moment for a car to pass so
that I could make my left-hand turn and start home. Suddenly, my car
was jolted forward, my seat belt clenching around my waist and
shoulder, securing me from shooting forward. I had gotten in my
first, and only, ‘Fender Bender’.

Although
in this minor accident no one was injured and minimal damage was done
to my vehicle, it still shook me up. I felt that if this had been a
more serious accident, I would not have been prepared to deal with it
calmly. This small accident, fortunately, was just what I needed in
order to become prepared however. I looked up procedures one would go
through if they were in a car accident, from when to call the police
to when to exchange insurance cards.

This
small accident did more than just prepare me for my next one,
however. It made me dedicated to preventing another one. Although I
don’t know the reason the person behind me ran into me in my fender
bender, phones play a huge role in causing accidents and distracting
drivers. According to the National Safety Council, 1 in 4 car
accidents in the U.S. is caused by texting and driving. In drivers
education, I remember the importance of not using your phone while
driving being emphasized, particularly with teenage drivers, who are
perpetually on their phones. I believe that reducing phone usage in
vehicles would significantly drop the amount of car crashes in the
U.S. and worldwide. Some apps on phones will not allow you to use
your phone if it believes that you are driving (based on your speed)
but most checks are easy to bypass and most apps have no checks on
this. Furthermore, the ding that your phone makes to alert you to
calls, texts, emails, etc is extremely distracting. This is why I
like to turn my phone to silent while I’m driving and set it face
down in a location that is out of reach (passenger seat, glove box,
in my pocket, etc). This makes my phone virtually inaccessible to me
while driving and helps to keep me distraction free. I’d encourage
other people, especially high school students to do the same thing
and I think we could significantly lower the rate of traffic
accidents by doing so.