One Second Later

Huh, that’s strange. Why is my sister calling me? She’s supposed to be driving home right now. I answered the phone on the third ring, and on the other end of the line, all I could hear was my sister trying to catch her breath. Immediately, I knew that something’s wrong, and for a second, my mind went to the worst case.

Trying to level my breath, I spat out, “What’s wrong?”

In a low hushed tone, she responded, “I got in an accident.”

My sister and my mother were in that car. I knew that she was physically unharmed, but what about my mother? I couldn’t breathe until she finished the rest of her thoughts.

“Mom’s okay too.”

When they both finally made it home, I heard the story behind the accident. A man on his phone on the highway slammed into the car in front of him, causing that car to hit my sister’s car to the side of the highway. The initial offender drove away without a hint of hesitation, and the damage he left was there for everyone else to clean up. In the initial car the man hit was a single father and a five-year-old girl. They were both physically unharmed, but the child was shocked into silence.

I was angry. I was annoyed. I was grateful that nothing had happened to my family, but most of all, I was resigned. Three of my friends were also in a car accident that year; each time, they were collateral damage because of someone else’s oversight. And just as many times, if not more, my loved ones had driven recklessly and put themselves into dangerous situations.

Still, sometimes I find the urge to grab my phone while driving, to respond to that text message, to look down just for a mere second while driving. I attempt to convince myself that I am a decent driver, and I have mastered driving enough to afford a second of distraction. However, statistics on car-related deaths, especially in conjunction with how many teenagers are killed, screams that my misconception is unfounded. At my school, driver education reiterated that when driving, there is only so much that the driver can control. The driver can control how they are on the road, but not how others are, and there is a startling sense of fear with that concept. However, that class also showed the grave responsibility that accompanies the new-found freedom of driving: I have the power to take someone’s life or ensure that they get home safely.

While I may think that I can survive a second of looking down while driving, am I really willing to risk someone else’s life to respond to that text? No, and I would be shocked to find many people who would respond otherwise. Hence, as technology evolves, cars and phones are attempting to reduce the number of deaths related to driving. iPhones have a Driving feature, which silences most notifications. Some cars connect to your phones, so the dashboard alerts you of any notification. However, these technological advancements are pulling the driver’s focus even more. Thus, I think that it is through education that we can reduce the number of deaths related to driving because the objective of the lesson is clear: anything that requires you to split your focus while driving is most likely not worth the consequence.

To do my part in becoming a better and safer driver, I put my phone on Do Not Disturb while driving. I do listen to music–being safe does not mean that the drive must be silent. However, I ensure that the music is at an appropriate level so that I can hear any sirens or honking around me. When I drive with passengers, it is especially important that they feel safe, and I feel safe driving them. In addition, after my experience with accidents past year, I have felt the need to hold my friends and family accountable when driving. For my sister, this modification has been particularly difficult considering the only free time she has to call me is when she’s driving home from work. However, her safety comes first.

As brutal as Drivers Education can be–with the gruesome videos of accidents–, I think simple stories about how a proficient driver is ignorant for a second carries more meaning: we all think that we will never cause the kind of damage that we saw on screen, but it only takes a lapse in judgment to take us there. We may be selfish enough to risk our own lives when driving, but are we selfish enough to risk the lives of others? Would you risk the life of the five-year-old girl who was so scared she couldn’t speak for hours?