It’s Not Me, It’s You: An Essay on Paying Attention to Drivers Around You

McKenna Linzey

November 2020

It’s Not Me, It’s You: An Essay on Paying Attention to Drivers Around You

When I was at the age where little girls still sell girl scout cookies and sit in the back seat of the car, my mom and I got into an accident in the middle of the night. Thankfully, neither of us was hurt, but me being the small whiny girl I once was, I still cried for hours on end. The car was completely totaled. My mom had done nothing wrong; we were driving down a straight shot road. However, the girl we hit had been sitting diagonally in the middle of the road, behind the driver’s seat of a car that was not hers, with her head and taillights off in the pitch-black night. (No, to this day, I have no clue what she was doing.) I hit my head first on the passenger seat in front of me and then ironically enough, had to duck to miss the flying boxes of Girl Scout cookies from the back of our car. Fast forward about 10 years later, and I am finding myself behind the wheel this time, driving down the same road. What is extremely important to note about being a driver, is that you can be doing everything right and following the law to a “T”, but that doesn’t mean other drivers around you will be thinking along that same mindset. I think the most important thing you can remember to do when getting behind the wheel is to focus on the other drivers around you. Sit at the green light an extra second to make sure no one is going to run that red light. Take an extra look at the stop sign before you cross. Little things like these are extremely important especially when driving later at night, which a lot of kids my age do. Taking the two seconds to do these little extra steps when driving is not going to kill you, literally. Beyond obviously just following the law, being more focused and alert as a driver would help so many people avoid mishaps. That day, my mom did everything she could to minimize the damage not only on our car, but to the other girl as well. Had she not been paying attention and noticed this girl in the middle of the road, the damages could’ve been a lot worse. To think that if she had seen that girl’s car even a few seconds later we could’ve been upside down in the ditch as opposed to us being on our wheels in the ditch, is crazy. If this essay teaches anyone anything, I hope it’s that when driving, you paying attention your surroundings is just as important as following the law because not everyone will always follow the law. And always remember, someone is anticipating your safe return home.