Purposeful Distraction

Paige Heath

6/24/2020

Have you ever had an experience of being in car accident or have seen your friends or family members driving irresponsibly?

The roads can be a dangerous place; even though vehicle companies have been innovating their cars for decades trying to make them safe for the use of the public. Despite this, there are still car accidents and wrecks. While some accidents are not due to distracted driving, a great majority of them are. Personally, and thankfully, I have never been in a car accident. I almost have multiple times, due to people being irresponsible or simply because they weren’t paying attention.

The first time I almost got in a car accident was when I was in a turn lane, about to turn into a restaurant. As I was coming up to the entrance, a couple was leaving. The woman who was driving had her face turned to the left, so she couldn’t see oncoming traffic. She started driving into the road. I honked my horn to warn her, successfully avoiding a wreck. She stopped as well for a moment then continued anyway, almost clipping my vehicle. That is an example of incredibly irresponsible driving. We almost got in a wreck – granted it would not have been an awful wreck, but it would be a wreck, nonetheless.

I am not an irresponsible driver, due to the fact that I am extremely paranoid of getting into a car crash. This doesn’t mean I’m a saint; I do get distracted when changing music, or if there are too many people in the car at once, but I don’t go out of my way to be an irresponsible driver. My friends and I do not like riding in the car with one of our particular friends because we always joke that he is a “bad driver”. However, we are not lying. He is a good driver on his own, however he gets distracted very easily and loses control of his car very easily. I honestly do not have a single memory of being in the car with him when he wasn’t on his phone. Sometimes, he will even play a YouTube video while he’s driving, and places it by his speedometer. I wish I was joking, but I am not. Not only this, but he speeds recklessly as well. While I am in the car with him, I try my best to text for him, change his music and so forth, so that he is completely focused on the road.

All in all, I believe that we all have something to work on when it comes to distracted/irresponsible driving. While I can change my friends’ music for him when I am in the car, he is still in danger by himself if he continues his bad driving habits. Personally, I am in the process of fixing my bad habits while driving, but if citizens continue their irresponsible driving, there will still be car wrecks that could have been completely avoided, if someone had simply paid attention.