The Addiction of Distraction

Christian Brewster

Friday, June 19

Howard University

Scholarship Essay: Distracted Driving

It isn’t difficult for someone to imagine what distracted driving looks like. Everyone at some point in their lives has experienced the feeling of dread and anxiety that comes with distracted driving. For the driver, that feeling may be nonexistent in that brief moment of distraction. For the passenger, that feeling looms over them like a dark cloud, teetering on the line between harmless and detrimental. Fortunately for me, I never experienced a serious car accident first hand, however, I have experienced that universal fear inside a vehicle.

This doesn’t mean that I was in a vehicle with someone that caused me unease and suspicion, it means that the driving habits of said person was reckless and caused the figurative cloud of fear I referenced earlier that looms over every passenger. Distracted driving can range from checking your phone for a text message to reaching down for something you dropped in the car. These actions, without deep reflection, are seemingly benign. Checking your phone on a daily basis isn’t strange for people in 2020. Whether people like it or not, looking at your phone screen is more than a force of habit, it’s an addiction that almost every human being can relate to. This addiction doesn’t simply disappear when someone climbs into the driver’s seat. Someone doesn’t become sober in a matter of minutes because they have an important job interview to attend to.

It might seem odd to compare distracted driving to an addiction, but it cannot be ignored that motor accidents are one of the leading causes of death among people ages 15 to 25 years old. Distracted driving is something that contains real consequences for every party involved. When one examines the sheer number of deaths involved in car accidents, its importance is made painfully clear and its relevance even more so.