Thank you, Twitter

It was Thanksgiving weekend, and we were making our annual trip upstate. My brother was in the passenger seat and my mom was in the back; we were talking about who we’ll see this weekend and the last time we were all together when suddenly my worst fear began to unfold. While we were in the high cliffs of the winding roads of northern California, the car began to hydroplane as we were making a turn. I didn’t breathe until we were at a full stop. We were all frozen for what seemed like 5 minutes, none of us saying a word, trying to comprehend what just happened and how we just made it out of that without a scratch. My mom finally broke the silence telling me did a good job and I started bawling, finally letting my emotions take over in reaction to what just happened. I am incredibly grateful for knowing what to do in this situation; don’t step on the brakes, keep the steering wheel straight, guide the car to a safe location.

I knew what to do when my car hydroplaned because of social media. I remember reading a thread of posts on Twitter that talked about what to do and what not to do in the case of your car hydroplaning. I remember going through the entire thread and reading as much as I could knowing that I would want to be well prepared for this situation knowing it is one of the situations I feared the most while driving. Thanks to that twitter thread, I was able to do exactly what was needed in order to regain control of the car that thanksgiving weekend and keep my family safe.

Social media is a well-known and frequently visited platform these days. I believe that driving information such as the kind I stumbled upon on Twitter should be normalized. The amount of users that will stumble across a quick instructional video on Instagram or thread while scrolling through Twitter might save the next person that may find themselves in a similar situation. Being in an accident can happen to anyone, at any time. Unfortunately, in these situations we don’t have control over too much, one of the few things we might have the power to control when caught in a dangerous situation including a vehicle is to be mentally prepared with how to best keep yourself and if possible, others safe.

Whether its tips on how to keep your phone from distracting you while driving or learning the safest way to pull over to the side of a highway after your tire pops. These are small, everyday things that have the potential to hurt yourself or others if not handled properly. Having these kind of conversations online also help people who are very attached to their phone understand the importance of safe driving and detaching while driving. Social media is also a place where the power of influencing holds great potential. The number of likes, viewers, or interactions that a post gets gives an individual an idea of how many people agree with the importance of driving safely. Consequently, it will influence the viewer to practice and value safe driving just as so many others are doing on the platform.

Something we can all do is like and share the posts that we see that are promoting safe driving and tips on what to do and what not to do in order to come out of an unfortunate and potentially dangerous situation. Some of us may have the luck of having someone in our lives that knows how to change a tire or change the oil of a car; others are not so fortunate. Sharing this information may just help someone one day. And just like the precautions we can share, we can also share cautionary tales of those who did something wrong. Sharing what what not to do can prevent someone from making the same mistake just as that twitter thread did for me when I hydroplaned with my family in the car. Information and knowledge are power, the more of it that we share, the better prepared we can be for tough events in our everyday lives, expected or not. My family and I are grateful for that twitter thread; without it, I would have not known what to do when I started losing control of the car that thanksgiving morning. Without it, no one would have advised me on the dos and don’ts of hydroplaning. Thank you, Twitter.