Distracted Driving

Motor accidents can be a result of many things. Texting and driving, driving under the influence, and even looking away from the road for a second can be deadly. These all fall under the category of distracted driving. As with all accidents, these are preventable. Lives can be saved; hours inside hospitals can be prevented, with more focused driver avoiding distractions.

Distracted driving is common among many people, whether this be a phone, another person in the car, or some other distraction. Many times, “just sending one more text” can lead to death, resulting in a family’s loss of someone that could’ve stayed alive, had they not been distracted.

I, personally, have been in a car accident. When my sister was 17 and I was 14, she had a car and a license. We were out running an errand for our mother and when we turned left in a left lane to send us on the freeway back home, a car kept moving forward and rammed us, right on the passenger side of the car, which was the side I was sitting on. We heard metal from the car dragging across the street as my sister pulled us into the nearest parking lot. The lady followed and she got out her car and frantically checked to see if we were alright. She apologized profusely, and while no visible injuries had occurred to either of us, I had hurt my head, neck, and back. The police showed up and soon my parents did as well. The lady confessed that she wasn’t paying attention while texting and just kept driving forward. She offered to cover all damages and any medical attention needed. I was shaken up by the accident and it was scary that I could’ve lost my life at such a young age, especially with the lady hitting directly into my side of the car. When the accident was settled, it turned out I had to attend physical therapy to deal with my concussion and physical pains. I would go after school, three times a week to a chiropractor and had an hour-long physical therapy session each day until after six months, I was no longer feeling pain from what happened to me.

This accident could’ve been prevented had she not had been distracted. To prevent accidents like this, my parents put rules in place, preventing my sister and I from texting, making a phone call, typing in a location, or doing anything on our phones while driving. They tell us to set the radio or the music before we even take off, as to not try to adjust it on the road. Technology is convenient nowadays and many people think that taking a few seconds to type something on your phone can’t remove your overall attention from controlling a vehicle. Taking your attention off the road for just a second is all it takes to cause an accident or end a life. Especially with children, an increasing use of and dependency on technology can shorten a person’s spatial awareness. This reduces focus on an individual’s location, activity, peripheral, and distance to other people and objects around. More commonly in daylight, this can make somebody not realize a car is coming in the opposite lane of a 2-way road, causing them to slightly drift over a little bit into the other lane and then quickly drift back when they finally notice the other car about to hit them. This goes for food as well, as a person rushing down the road, trying to get a bite of food, has less control over the steering wheel, putting them at risk for an accident. Social interaction can do the same thing. Two people in a car are likely to be social. If the driver turns to speak to their passenger, or attempts to look over their shoulder to address the people behind them, they have a few moments of their eyes being off the road, in which time, they could not notice a road getting narrower. Distractions such as technology, food, or social interaction shorten the attention of a driver, causing accidents and injuries to many.

Distracted driving is a leading cause of deaths and injuries. Due to diverting their attention from the road, many people have lost their lives or experienced severe injuries. Due to distractions, a lot of the current generations of drivers have decreased spatial awareness compared to past generations. If distracted driving and the fatalities aren’t taken seriously and addressed by everyone, the rate of those injured or dead due to vehicle accidents will only increase in the years to come.