Name: Kaitlyn Wong
From: Sugar Land, Texas
Votes: 0
With my hands on the
wheel, I patiently waited for the light to turn green. My dad was
next to me, and we were looking forward to checking out Sprouts, an
organic grocery store that recently opened along the University
Boulevard. The traffic light flickered from red to green allowing me
to move my foot from the brakes to the gas. The clicking of the turn
signal sounded the whole way through as I turned left. What should’ve
lasted for about five seconds turned into 20. A driver on the
opposite side of the road inched closer and closer to the edge and
decided to turn right just as I was coming towards her. Her mind was
on the phone that was in her hand, but thankfully, my mind was on the
road. What could’ve been inches away from a scrape on the tail was
prevented because I was alert.
Drivers nowadays
have an abundance of distractions. Cars are more advanced, but that
doesn’t give us an excuse to slack off in terms of driving safely.
Driving education is important because it sets the base for all
drivers to know the basic rules of driving so that we don’t have to
depend on a piece of transportation to alert us whenever we’re
doing something wrong. We can’t put our lives into the hands of
technology. We should be responsible for our own lives and the lives
of others in the car.
Distractions are
going to be uncalled for in certain situations but for those that we
can prevent, such as eating or putting on makeup, they should be
managed beforehand. The following acronym is important to remember
because they are the main causes of accidents: LIFE.
Listening to
music
A study by
scientists at Newfoundland’s Memorial University found that
reaction time can slow as much as 20% when someone is listening to
loud music. Turning down the volume will prevent accidents because it
will allow drivers to be more alert about their surroundings and be
able to hear honks or car sensors. Studies also show that drivers
tend to focus more on the music they’re familiar with than the
road, leading to an increase of chances for a dangerous outcome. This
doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t listen to any music at all, but
instead, we need to prepare beforehand by putting on our favorite
playlist so that we don’t have to keep changing the songs and
become distracted by the radio.
Infants
According to the AAA
Foundation for Traffic Safety, children create four times the
distraction to drivers as adult passengers do, with infants being
nearly eight times as disturbing. Infants are always going to be
unpredictable, but there is a solution so that the driver doesn’t
have to be distracted from the road. Always make sure that there is
someone else in the car to take care of the infants in the case that
they cry, throw toys around, or start yelling. If that extra
passenger isn’t available, try to find things for the infants to be
distracted with such as a movie or a YouTube video. Find ways to veer
drivers’ attention from the kids to the road.
Food/friends
The crash risk
doubles when teens drive one peer passenger and triples with two or
more teen passengers. The more friends you have in the car, the
louder the conversations are and the more likely you are going to be
distracted by those conversations. Before you start moving the car
with your friends in the car, make guidelines such as not being too
loud, not making messes, and being respectful so that you don’t
have to worry about that throughout the drive. Another cause of
accidents is food. According to a study by Lytx, drivers with food
and drink are 3.6 times more likely to be in a car crash than their
attentive counterparts. The most beneficial and easiest solution is
to eat before or after the ride so that you can have both hands on
the wheel and both eyes on the road rather than your breakfast
burrito.
Electronics
It has been known
that driving and texting shouldn’t go together, yet many drivers
still do it. That urge to find out the latest school drama and the
need to reply within a minute is not worth your life or someone
else’s. There have been laws passed that prohibited phones in your
hands but that hasn’t fixed the problem. Perhaps putting our phones
on do not disturb or even on silent before we start driving is a
possible solution because we won’t know we’re getting
notifications until we turn our phones back on. With our cars
becoming more innovative and modern, we can find a way for our phones
to somehow interact with the engine of the car so that the car knows
when the driver is distracted and apply precautions to steer the
driver’s attention back to the road. The most beneficial solution,
however, requires the least amount of work and that is to ignore the
phone when on the road.
The next time you go
on the road, remember LIFE because it affects your own life and
others.
Sources
“The 7 Deadly Sins of Distracted Driving: Wrath (of Music).”
Auto-Related News, Trends, & Tips – I Drive Safely,
www.idrivesafely.com/defensive-driving/trending/7-deadly-sins-distracted-driving-wrath-music.
“Learn the Warning Signs Before Your Children Cause a Distracted
Driving Crash.” Johnson & Gilbert, P. A.,
www.mylegalneeds.com/library/how-children-may-cause-distracted-driving-accidents.cfm.
“Peer Passengers.” Teen Driver Source,
www.teendriversource.org/teen-crash-risks-prevention/distracted-driving/peer-passengers.
“Distracted Driving: Eating and Drinking Behind the Wheel.”
Distracted Driver Accidents, 1 Feb. 2017,
distracteddriveraccidents.com/eating-distracted-driving/.
