Par for the Course

It was a normal Saturday afternoon and my little brother and I were on our way to play golf for the first time by ourselves. We had played before but it was always with my dad or my grandpa. It was Summer but it felt more like Spring because the temperature that day was only 78 degrees when it had been in the 90s all week. We were listening to the type of music that would never be played in my parents’ car when we heard a loud bang followed by the sound of metal dragging across the pavement. I turned to my brother and I could see on his face that he was scared. I didn’t want him to worry so I said to him “it’s okay – I got this.”

I knew I had to pull over to the side of the road and I was in the middle lane of a busy highway. I quickly remembered what I had learned in Drivers’ Education. Remain calm, put on your hazard lights, find a safe path to change lanes and pull over to side of the road a safe distance from traffic.

Flashback to a week before and I’m in the driveway with my dad. He told me that if I’m going to own a car I needed to know some basic car maintenance, including changing a tire. I had gotten my rims blacked out to make my Jeep Cherokee look even cooler. He demonstrated the proper technique for loosening the bolts, using the jack and removing the tire. Turns out, when we put the tire back on the car we didn’t tighten the bolts correctly and it caused them to damage the rim to the point that it cracked, causing a flat tire and damage to the axel.

We waited by the side of the road as the temperature started to climb. The 90 degree weather that had been present all week had returned and it was getting quite uncomfortable. We had called our parents and then the Roadside Assistance number in the owners’ manual – another piece of advice my father gave me. But as a young driver with my younger brother in the car, I was still scared because I didn’t quite know what to do. Ultimately my grandfather came to stay with us and he told me something that made a lot of sense. He said that he was proud of me for handling the situation. When I asked what he meant by that, he said, “when you’re driving a car and something unexpected happens, it’s easy to panic. But you didn’t. You used the skills you acquired in your Driver Education class to get your car to the side of the road. And more importantly, you kept calm to make sure your brother knew you’d be okay.”

After I got home I began to recap the incident and thought about what could have happened. In Driver Education we learned about the dangers of driving distracted. I still see many drivers on the road, some older experienced drivers, texting while driving. According to the CDC, approximately 3,285 people are killed each year by driving while distracted and over 300,000 more are injured. And while this was not a situation where I was driving distracted, I still had to react to suddenly to get to the side of the road. It really demonstrated to me that things can change in an instant while driving and using your phone is a completely unnecessary act that can cost lives.

I believe that texting is the most dangerous thing a person can do while driving. According to the NHTSA, when you send or read a text message, you take your eyes off the road for about 5 seconds, long enough to cover the length a football field while driving at 55 mph. I’ve seen the “It Can Wait” campaign on TV and of course it’s discussed in Driver Education. But until you’ve been in a traffic accident yourself, it’s easy to dismiss the warning. You’ll say things like “it won’t happen to me” or “I’ll be careful” but there is absolutely no excuse for it. I’ve pledged not to drive distracted to not only save lives but to be an example for my friends and my little brother.