Do your decisions reflect your values?

“Car accident” is a term many Americans hear frequently. It’s on billboards for law firms, it’s in newspaper articles, or maybe you’ve been involved in one. I believe that the more precise title in most cases is car crash, the reason being that an accident means that it was completely out of the control of all the parties involved, unfortunately, that is not usually the case, as all too often, it happens because someone didn’t like the song on the radio and looked down to change it, it happens because they took the time to respond to a text while driving, it happens because someone who took drugs or drank alcohol got behind the wheel of a car. The point is, car crashes are the result of decisions people make based on what they value most at that moment in time.

For a large number of teenagers in the US, their first time driving happens between the ages of 15 and 18. Teenagers are notorious for not always making the most rational decisions while driving, as shown in the movie “Clueless” when Cher blows past a stop sign and says the iconic line “I totally paused!”. While that’s just an example of Hollywood placing age-old stereotypes on teenagers, it’s not all that far from the truth.

As someone who fits into that age category, I’ve had numerous experiences with friends in the car who just don’t seem to understand the enormous responsibility they have when they have control over their life, my life, and the lives of those in the vehicles around us. For example, one day after track practice, I had asked a friend to give me a ride home. This friend had told me that she would drop me off on her way to work and that she could multitask by putting on her makeup while driving. As a teenage girl, I know that applying eyeliner takes incredible precision and focus, as does driving a car, and that doing both at the same time was a disaster waiting to happen. Sure enough, she drifted off the road, past a curb, and almost hit a man mowing his lawn. After reflecting on this experience from the safety of my house, I realized that several factors contributed to my friend’s poor decision. The first of those factors was time: she was going straight to work and did not have time to stop at home, to cut to the chase, she valued her time more than the man’s life. The second factor is that she was distracted. As I stated previously, both driving and applying eyeliner require one’s full attention, and that cannot be given to either task while operating a moving vehicle. My friend, however, once again valued the task at hand (putting on eyeliner) more than that man’s life. As the adage goes: “Once is luck, twice is a coincidence and three times is a pattern.” And while luck may not apply in this case, it’s still true that a third factor, my very presence in the car, was of more value to my friend than the man’s life, making her bad decisions a common pattern. Statistics show that teenagers are more likely to make risky decisions while driving when one or more of their peers is in the car. She was most likely under the impression that I would be impressed at her ability to do both things at once, but instead, she risked both of our lives, as well as the life of an innocent bystander because of her risky driving patterns.

This experience ultimately affected the way I would drive when I got a license a few months later. As a responsible driver, I realize that it is my responsibility to make decisions that are in the interest of preserving my life as well as the lives of other drivers and pedestrians (and their wallets). I make decisions such as turning off my phone altogether and putting it physically out of reach. Of course, I have moments where I want to look down at my phone, but the thing that encourages me to continue driving safely is that other people’s lives are in my hands once I put my key in the ignition, and that stays in the forefront of my mind.

Driver’s Education plays an important role in how young drivers behave on the road. Not only does it teach the laws in different states, and the more technical aspects of driving, like when it is ok to pass a school bus or which way your wheels should face on a hill, but it should also include the emotional, physical, and legal consequences for all parties in a car crash. It is so important to include, as it shapes the mindsets of new drivers in a positive way. I’m a prime example of that. Three years ago, I took a drivers education course online, and they described a car crash in detail, from the moment the driver decided to drink, to her driving her vehicle, to the physical aftermath when she hit a pedestrian, to the grief that the victim’s family experienced, to the legal consequences and jail time the driver faced. Three years later, that story stuck with me, because I understood the severity of her decisions, and it allowed me to place myself in the metaphorical shoes of all those involved.

Driving is all about decisions. I decide to think about others while I drive. I think about others because my actions affect them. I think about how unfair it is that my decisions affect them, but that is the reality of driving. It’s completely unfair that safe drivers must drive defensively to make up for the actions of those who don’t drive safely. It’s unfair that an average of 34,000 families get the news that nobody ever wants to hear: that their loved one has passed because somebody else valued their bad decisions over human life. I implore anyone who reads this essay to ask themselves: Do your decisions while driving reflect your values?