Collective Responsibility: Mindful Driving

Hitting
the windshield felt like swimming through wet cement in slow motion.

I
was 14, driving home with a friend. Traffic was full stop. I didn’t
know the man behind us was driving drunk, distracted and speeding in
a school zone, and would forgo the use of his breaks when he finally
glanced up.

The
collision broke my seatbelt, and I flew into the dashboard. Our car
ricocheted between the sedan in front and the perpetrator’s van
behind like a pingpong ball. Between my head smashing into the glass
and the airbag deploying, I blacked out. I’ll never know how many
times my skull made impact before the boomeranging ceased.

Miraculously,
I survived with minor scrapes and bruises. The EMT later told me he’d
never seen someone face head-on impact like mine without debilitating
injury. The whole ordeal felt like a dream until I visited the car in
the junkyard and found clumps of my hair woven within the
spiderwebbed glass.

The
trauma I faced was enough that I opted out of licensure until years
past the allowable age. I still spend extra time yanking seatbelts to
make sure they’re secured, and I suffer anxiety during car rides.

When
I finally chose to get my learner’s permit, drivers ed
wasn’t just a means to an end. It meant facing my experience and
converting my trauma into something worthwhile. Others took on the
responsibility of driving as a joke, but I hyper-focused on the
reality of what shirking that privilege could cause. I might’ve
lived, but every day, people die as a result of vehicular
manslaughter. The importance of remaining aware and engaged while
educating yourself is imperative, because it lessens the odds of you
becoming one more statistic—an anonymous corpse on a line graph
that many don’t take seriously.

Driver’s
education doesn’t end once you’re licensed. We have an obligation
to be forever mindful of safety. Thousands of lives are saved by
simply being aware in the moment. Distractions like cell phones, fast
food, and alcohol aren’t as important as focusing on the path in
front of you. The solution is easy: turn off the phone. Wait to eat
until you don’t need both hands on the wheel. Above all else, be
present of your state of mind. Feeling drunk? Loopy? Tired?
Distracted? These states disallow us to drive with vigilance, so the
right choice is not to get behind the wheel at all.

It’s
an elementary concept. I’m not the first to reinforce it, but we
must keep doing just that so meanwhile, innovators in transportation
can discover methods to continuously improve roadway safety. As an
individual, I keep roads safe by practicing mindfulness. Being
licensed also mandates passing this credence onto others. Ideally, I
hope my reinforcement of knowledge will become ours, and eventually,
society could collectively combine and leverage our unique
experiences to better our responsiveness toward driver safety.

I’m
not going to be another dot on a line graph. Are you?