Life, Death, and the Steering Wheel

On November 3, 2009, my cousin, Mandy Balderas was sentenced to 8 years in prison for driving under the influence, taking a man’s life, and putting her own son’s life in danger. How could this be? How could a young 18 year old girl, who made good grades, followed the rules, and prayed to God every night be separated from her family, stripped from her child, and lose so many chances to make a good life for her and her son?

On January 23, 2017, my close friend, Jose Ketterhagen, said goodbye to his older brother, Tommy, forever. Why was this? Why couldn’t this 17 year old kid go on a bike ride around his neighborhood before bed, come home, tell his mother goodnight, wake up in the morning, and go on with the rest of his life? Why did it have to be that Mrs. Ketterhagen had to find the lifeless body of her oldest son, whose life was taken by an individual who found a cell phone more important than the road?

There is no right answer to these questions. In fact, there are no answers at all. All these tragedies can be attributed to nothing but carelessness and the feeling of invincibility. But no one is invincible. How easy is it to Google the amount of fatalities caused by reckless driving this year? When you turn these peoples’ lives into numbers, their deaths are easier to accept. However, when you listen to these stories, listen to the cries of dead teenager’s mother, listen to a young boy ask why a glass pane has to separate him from his mom, all of the sudden, these numbers turn into realities. You put your phone away when you drive. You swear to yourself and to others that you will not touch a steering wheel after taking a sip of alcohol. You keep your eyes on the road and hands on the wheel. This is not only for me, my family, and my friends, but for other people, their families, and their friends.

But that is still not enough. It is also our jobs to ensure that others put their phones up, that others call an Uber after a drink, and that others keep their eyes on the road and hands on the wheel.

This is why drivers ed in reducing the amount of deaths related to driving is important: so that Mandy can hug and kiss her child goodnight, and Blane can have a mom to hug and kiss goodnight, and so Mandy can live without the immense guilt that she is responsible for the preventable death of an innocent man. So that Jose can still have an older brother to look up to, and his mom could hug her son’s warm body, instead of his cold tombstone. So that the thousands of these stories don’t have to be told, and the thousands of friends and families won’t have to lose their loved ones to reckless drivers.