mom’s phone call

Your mother called three times now.

She’s getting anxious because usually when she calls, you answer.

It didn’t matter how busy you were or how distant your phone was. It didn’t matter if it was the middle of the night, or the middle of an important meeting at work.

When ‘Mom’ calls, you answer. No questions asked.

And hours have passed since the last time you’ve spoken to her, since you calmed her nerves by allowing her to scold you over the phone—‘When I call you’re supposed to pick up!’

Instead, your phone’s across the side of the road smashed and unrecognizable. Your car’s not doing any better, flipped upside down on its roof instead of on its tires. You’re somewhere amongst this, amongst loud sirens and blinking red and blue lights.

Had you been able to hear you would’ve heard the sounds of desperate voices, all of which spoke of something else. You would’ve heard a collection of footsteps far and near, rushing back and forth through the pavement.

Had you been able to see, you would’ve seen the abundance of paramedics trying to get you out of your vehicle—because it was flipped and you were still trapped inside it, not saying a single word. You were unresponsive.

If you could feel, you would’ve felt your car subtly shake as the door of it was sawed into. An effort from the rescuers that were trying to save you. They tried everything they could that night to indirectly help you return your mother’s phone call, but nothing worked.

Though this may not be my story, it is for over 3,700 people daily. That’s around 46,000 people per year.

There’s an assortment of causes for traffic fatalities in the US, but the most common ones are; Driving under the influence, speeding, and distracted driving.

The importance of knowing ways to prevent traffic fatalities, or protecting yourself from someone else who is driving recklessly, is crucial to survival, and I think learning how to do so is possible.

My first suggestion would be to look over the drivers manual of your state every now and then as a refresher. Most people probably only view it once or twice out of their entire lives, and as the years pass by its easy to forget the things you’ve once known.

A consistent refresher would be good for drivers, as the manual speaks in statistics about the amount of deaths caused by reckless driving, lives saved by following safe driving techniques. And it provides information on what to do in mostly every situation one could face on the road.

I think reading over this book and suggesting it to my friends and family, can be an easy way to keep us all safe on the road. My state, Rhode Island, as well as many others like Massachusetts and New York, offer the drivers handbook for free as a pdf. So it’s accessible for those who may not have the funds to spend on a book.

Going into more specifics regarding how to stay safe against the leading causes of traffic fatalities, my next suggestions will be broken down into parts of 2-3 ideas, with information supporting them.

Driving under the influence

In the year of 2019, out of 36,096 TFS, 10,142 of them were caused by driving under the influence. That’s a scary number to think about, so here are some ways I came up with to prevent that number from increasing.

1. phone a family member or a friend for a ride instead of driving yourself home.

According to the site ‘ValuePenguin’ 37% of people drive drunk because they think their destination isn’t too far away. No matter how close or far a drive is, one should never get behind the wheel while intoxicated.

2. call for a rideshare service such as uber or lyft.

For those that do not have someone close they can contact, the option of a rideshare service is available too. While looking at a study by Micheal Anderson and Lucas Davis, I found that rideshare services have decreased traffic fatalities in the US by 4% and have the possibility of reducing it to 6% in the future.

3. take your guests car keys, and keep them somewhere safe.

I think if hosts of events were to take their guests’ keys and keep them somewhere safe, it would be much easier to see who’s fit to drive or not when the time comes to collect them. This could help save a lot of people, as it keeps an unfit driver off of the road. (You can’t exactly drive without your keys after all.)

Speeding

There’s a ton of reasons why people speed. Some do it because they are in a hurry, others feel confident enough in their surroundings to drive a little faster than most, and some don’t even realize they are going that fast.

1. leave early

If you tend to get to places late and that’s the reason you’re speeding, then leaving a little earlier than planned should help prevent the need to go faster than required.

2. Think about the risks of speeding.

According to a study by the NSC (national safety council) in 2020, speeding took almost 11,258 lives per year, or 30 lives per day. That’s 29% of all traffic fatalities.

Distracted driving

Distracted driving takes over 8 lives a day, nearly 3,500 per year— source: ‘thezebra.com’

Driving while distracted can mean a range of things, whether it’s eating while handling the wheel, texting, or even talking. Here are some ways I think we can prevent distracted driving.

1. pull over

I think pulling over to answer a missed call or text, or even just to have the meal you’ve been craving for a while, is the safest thing you can do to prevent an accident on the road. It gives you time to handle what needs to be done without any rush, and you can continue driving peacefully knowing all was taken care of.

2. turn on your device’s ‘driving mode feature.’

The Driving mode feature is available on both android and IOS devices. It gives drivers the option of either silencing their notifications so they can focus on the road until they get to a safe stop, or the option of using their voice to respond to texts and phone calls. A 2023 article on Forbes.com, states that 13% of fatalities from driving is caused by texting / cell phone use.

3. Set up automatic replies

Automatic replies are also accessible to both android and ios devices, and make it so a custom reply can be sent to a person they aren’t able to respond to at the moment. I think setting up a reply along the lines of ‘cant talk, im driving’, can be useful to the receiver of the message and the driver.

To sum things up, driver education is an important step in keeping people safe on the road. Just being mindful of yourself and the people around you, can make it possible to return mom’s phone call.