Blink of an Eye

One text can truly change the course of someone or their family’s life. In my case, I was the messenger behind this life changing text to my family. As my fingers trembled, I tried to text my family that my father had just gotten into a car accident and that he was okay, but I was scared and my thoughts were scattered. After the state trooper called, I was in disbelief; trying to process how in a matter of seconds, my father’s life could have been taken from this Earth.

After a few days passed, my family and I later learned that a sleep deprived driver on his way to work rear-ended my father on the expressway, causing the 3 car chain reaction collision. While all of the drivers walked away from the accident, my father’s car was totaled and he sustained lingering back injuries which continue to this day. Like many individuals or families that have experienced a car accident, we found ourselves asking, “How could this happen?”.

Falling asleep at the wheel is more common than I previously thought. According to The Centers for Disease Control (CDC), there were 91,000 accidents in 2017 as a result of drivers falling asleep at the wheel. This is likely due to the CDC’s estimate that 1 in 25 adult drivers (18 and older) report having fallen asleep while driving in the last 30 days. Not even my father, a 40 year driving veteran, was immune from experiencing a serious car crash related to drowsy driving. However, it was my father’s prior driver’s education that helped to spare his life and allowed him to walk away from that accident.

One of the first of many rules that drivers learn is to always be vigilant and practice defensive driving. That is exactly what my father does and did that day. He frequently checked his rear view mirror and in doing so, saw the speeding driver rapidly approaching the stopped traffic with no signs of braking. My father was able to recognize the impending impact and quickly turned his front wheels so that the impact would send his car into the shoulder of the expressway, rather than into another car or traffic. Driver’s education will always be something that I take seriously because it helped to save my father. Nonetheless, driver education should be equally as important to others without such a traumatic experience happening to them or their loved one because of the serious dangers of driving.

Today, with nearly 240 million vehicles on the roads in the U.S. and more new drivers joining everyday, I believe that ongoing driver’s education should be made available to both new and experienced drivers. As our knowledge of safety practices and technology advances, this information should evolve and continue to be broadly shared with everyone. Continuing driver’s education courses would also help to correct deeply rooted unsafe practices currently in use by older drivers. I have personally witnessed my parents practice unsafe driving habits such as texting, eating, and driving while fatigued. I am certain that other teens have as well. Parents, guardians, and older family members often set high safety expectations for new drivers, yet model different behavior everyday through their actions. Thus, unsafe driving practices are passed down generationally. Making sure that ongoing driver safety education is provided will help to ensure that the freedom to operate potentially deadly machinery is not taken lightly.

With society quickly progressing, workers are commuting longer distances, working longer hours, and doing gig related jobs to meet the demands of the new economy. Corporate America has begun to recognize their responsibility to ensure that its workers are not driving impaired due to fatigue. Transportation and logistics companies have added sleep detection safety features in their commercial trucks that can help with determining if drivers are suited to be on the road. These technologies include eye closure monitors, lane shift detectors, pulse detection, steering variance, and brainwave monitors. In consumer vehicles lane shift detectors, steering variance, and sensing devices are often features that can be added at an additional cost. I believe that some of the commercial safety technology to help reduce sleeping related car accidents should be expected, affordable resources within consumer vehicles just like seatbelts and airbags. Another suggestion is that industries should adopt technology to sync wearable biometric devices (i.e., watches, rings, necklaces and bracelets) so that they can be paired with vehicle safety technology to detect sleep impaired drivers and alert them when they are behind the wheel.

After witnessing the long lasting effects a car accident has had on my father and with me becoming a new driver, I have learned to understand that when you step foot into the driver’s seat you are accepting the greatest responsibility ever; the protection of one’s life and that of others. I sometimes find myself driving while tired and tell myself to just “push through”. Going forward I have decided that this is no longer sustainable. The National Sleep Foundation (NSF) has some key tips to help drivers assess if they are too fatigued to be on the road. When I feel tired I will use this guide to assess my level of fatigue before getting behind the wheel. If while driving, I begin to feel sleepy, I will pull over to take a nap or call a trusted person to pick me up. As a passenger I also bear responsibility for preventing a potential accident. If I sense that my friends or parents are tired, I will offer to drive, ask them to pull over to rest, or even refuse to ride with them in the car if I feel unsafe.

The first week in November is Drowsy Driving Prevention week. I will use this as an opportunity to spread awareness about the issue of sleep impaired driving through the clubs and organizations of which I am a member. I feel it important for both youth and adults to be exposed to and adopt these recommended personal safety strategies.

In conclusion, I think that not only myself but other teens, young adults, and older citizens have a duty to hold one another accountable for driving responsibly. If we are brave enough to speak up, educate ourselves and take corrective action, lives can be saved.