Driving Safely

America has a problem, and it is ravaging our streets. Road traffic crashes are a leading cause of death in the United States for people ages one to fifty-four, and they are the leading cause of non-natural death for U.S. citizens residing in the country or traveling abroad. There are about thirteen car accidents per second in the United States, and the leading cause of car accidents is distraction. And when I say distraction most people know what tops the list by far.

Using a phone is one of the most distracting things in our modern society. It can steal our focus away from a wealth of exigent activities, and driving is no exception. People nowadays are checking Instagram, scrolling through TikTok, and sometimes even posting on these platforms while behind the wheel. But the one thing that makes people struggle to put their phone down the most is texting. I believe this is due to the fact that there is always a sense of urgency in responding since there is someone waiting for your response on the other end. The truth is that although texting and driving is widely frowned upon, individuals often feel that this rule applies to everyone but them. They allow themselves to be deluded into thinking they are the exception because they can do it safely.

But this common practice is too dangerous for drivers to be caving in to impatience. A lot of people feel overconfident in their ability to text and drive and they believe that as long as their attention is not one-hundred percent focused on their phone that they’re being cautious enough. But it only takes one second to go from texting back to being responsible for the loss of someone’s mother, father, uncle, aunt, friend, or even child. Still for some it is much easier said than done to resist the urge to text while driving. And while most, if not all times a text can wait, emergencies can arise. So what should one do? Well, there are a few options I can expound on below.

About 135.97 million people in the United States have an iPhone, which allows holders to use the virtual assistant Siri to take a voice recording and transcribe it into a text message. In fact, most smartphones of all brands have voice-to-text capabilities, and that covers much of our country’s population with about three-hundred ten million smartphone users worldwide. But what about when you don’t want everyone in the car to hear the message that you want to send? If it’s very urgent to respond, you should pull over.

But the very best option is just to tell people you are in active conversation that you are going to be driving beforehand. This way if something comes up they can either call or wait until you’re not on the road. This practice follows the principle that, “an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure,” and this prevention can even be instilled much earlier in a driver’s career.

While many people believe they know how to drive well, not as many of them thoroughly educate themselves on safe driving and the weight of their decisions. When it comes to driving it’s not only your own safety that is at risk when you drive recklessly, but others as well. I feel that if more people looked carefully into safe driving practices and understood the statistics, the mortality rates due to driving accidents would decrease.

I have been in cars where people have driven recklessly and it is not a fun experience because I have this overwhelming sense that I am quite literally putting my life in someone else’s hands. When they fail to drive safely for one reason or another it seems as if they have not taken that into consideration. Even worse, it can feel as if they are devaluing my life. I remember there was one time when an extended family member was driving me to an event and engaged in persistent speeding, my heart was racing within me and I just wanted to leave the car as quickly as possible. While I am certain that that family member cared about me, they could have demonstrated it better while on the road.

One way that I can help other drivers become safer is by modeling that myself. A lot of people do things because they see everyone else doing it. The bandwagon effect is a proven psychological reality, which makes it all the more important that those with the right knowledge act appropriately. So no matter who is sitting in my car, I will do my very best to demonstrate what a safe driver looks like. And hopefully that will inspire them to take road safety as seriously as possible, so they can do the same for others.