A Message that Cannot be Unsent

From the advancement of technology to the development of our economy, the world around us is changing rapidly everyday. As a generation where technology has been the basis of our everyday lives, it has come with its advantages and disadvantages. The major disadvantage being texting while driving. Within the last seven years of the progression of technology, it has caused a spike in the ongoing issue of texting and driving, especially in teens. According to the American Council on Science and Health, an average of 50 percent of driving high school students have admitted to texting and driving. I suppose this number is high, because we have become so acclimated with the dependence of cell phones. Whether it’s searching for directions in the GPS or simply feeling the urge to reply to a text, people don’t realize that the slightest distraction for any amount of time can cause a major accident that not only negatively affects the driver and passengers but it puts every person around them in danger.

Ultimately, people won’t truly believe that they can be affected by a phone distraction accident until it happens to them or a loved one. A lot of us carry around this mentality that something like this could not happen to me or we make claims like “it’s just one text, I’ll be fine” not realizing that it could be our last one. Now, of course we like to remain positive and not hold these possibilities above us, but it is important that we do not completely disregard them. An article published in 2017 by the Atlanta Journal Constitution sheds light on the fact that from 2014 to 2016, the deaths of drivers due to distractions spiked by a third. Not only that but “fatalities rose 14 percent nationwide during the same time period” ( David Wickert, The Atlanta Journal Constitution). I suppose now, especially after the passing of the Hands Free Georgia Law on July 1, 2018, people are more aware of their own actions while driving. We see this from the Georgia Department of Transportation, where the results of fatalities dropped from 1,514 in 2018 to 348 in 2019. In order to continue this decline we have to do things like turning off the notification sound, maybe even putting the device on Do Not Disturb mode which allows for an automatic text to be sent so that you can focus on the road. I think that in order to break this habit of texting and driving it has to start with self accountability. Ultimately, we have to do our part as individuals to make sure we are staying aware and safe while driving. It is our job to hold ourselves and the ones around us accountable for limiting our distractions while driving. We have to first continue to abide by the law and force ourselves to be uncomfortable enough to not reach for the phone and even practice not checking it while on the road to break this deadly habit.