Interactive Timeline: Feel for Distracted Driving Victims

Driver education is crucial to reducing the number of driving-related deaths. Educating future and current drivers makes them aware of the significance of safe driving. No one should assume that all drivers understand the severity of unsafe driving because they may think that their irresponsible driving does not affect others. Teaching new and current drivers provides a lesson emphasizing the importance of safe driving for all drivers. Only focusing on new drivers means that older drivers, who feel comfortable on the road and are more likely to seek distractions while driving, exclude the largest distracted driving population.

To reduce the number of deaths related to driving, drivers need to feel the effects of unsafe driving. Hearing stories of people you don’t know can affect some, but it is very uncommon for someone to actually care about a story if it didn’t happen to them or someone close to them. While I am not encouraging people to get into accidents to scare their friends and families, simulations of distracted driving accidents can help people feel this experience. Commonly, teens use simulations like drunk driving to understand their impairments and how drunk driving can land them in a dangerous situation. However, it does not go into the aftermath of the accident. If people realize how people are affected by their decisions, they are more likely to drive safer, understanding that each decision they make while driving can have lasting effects. An interactive timeline with quotes from real victims can help emphasize the severity of distracted driving. The timeline can also show how someone’s driving decisions can have effects for years or decades. If a parent is killed by a distracted driver, the lives of their child(ren) are permanently changed. The timeline could explain the child’s trauma of losing a parent in raising their children and driving. These long-lasting effects show the significance of these small decisions some people do not realize. Humans are natural sympathizers and will feel for people affected by these accidents, especially the ones closest to them. While this may not dissuade everyone from driving unsafely, I believe it will make many people second-guess picking up their phone, grabbing some chapstick, or rummaging in the glove compartment while driving.

I had a car accident shortly after I had earned my driver’s license. A few days after my 17th birthday, I felt comfortable driving by myself and was less careful than I should have been. I drove home late at night after babysitting for a family not far from home. There was a sharp curve that I had taken many times and felt comfortable going more than 15 mph. I didn’t pump the brakes as I should have, and my purse on the passenger seat slid and hit the glove compartment. The startling noise of my purse falling caused me to dart my eyes towards my passenger seat and away from the road. The split second I wasn’t looking at the street, the car hit a steel sign on the side of the road, ripping the front bumper off the car. I slammed on the breaks and froze, not sure what to do. I sat in my dad’s car, shocked, worried, and embarrassed all at the same time. I called my dad, unsure of how he would react and scared he would be mad. He answered calmly and met me at the crash. We called the police, as I had damaged town property, and an officer met us to explain what happened. While the accident wasn’t severe, the stress and embarrassment made me cry. The officer assured me that all would be okay and that it was typical for new drivers to be easily startled and have an accident within the first few years of driving.

This accident made me work to focus on the road no matter what. While there are so many different distractions, I have trained myself to ignore them and keep my eyes glued to the road. If I am in the car with someone, especially someone I know who drives unsafely, I offer to take on distractions for them so they can focus on the road. I have made myself the designated texter, caller, and music player to help my friends and family drive safer and leave distractions to me. Before leaving, I always connect my phone to my car, so I’m only alerted in an emergency. Bluetooth lets me drive distraction-free but stay connected if necessary. I also make sure to put my purse on the floor of my car, not the seat, to avoid that distraction from getting me into an accident again.