Name: Sydney Arbeiter
From: Kenosha, Wisconsin
Votes: 0
Holding
Lives in Your Hands
Almost thirty
years ago, my uncle was hit by a drunk driver on his way home from
work. The crash was so bad that he was left paralyzed from the neck
down for the rest of his life. I only ever knew him when he was
confined to a wheelchair, dependent on his family for basic human
needs, but that wasn’t always the case. He had been an independent,
self-sufficient man, who was actively involved in sports, but on that
fateful night, that freedom and independence was taken away for good.
While he always had a big smile on his face whenever I saw him, I
know that was a drastic change in his quality of life and required
some major sacrifices from his family.
Until I started
drivers ed when I was fifteen, I thought that drunk driving
was the leading cause of car accidents. However, a study conducted by
the U.S. Department of Transportation showed that 40.6% of crashes
are due to recognition errors, which included internal and external
distractions and inadequate surveillance of surroundings. They found
that “the most frequently occurring critical reason was inadequate
surveillance that refers to a situation in which a driver failed to
look, or looked but did not see, when it was essential to safely
complete a vehicle maneuver” (NHTSA), meaning distracted driving is
reasonable for the most car accidents.
Distracted driving is the top cause of car accidents, ranking higher
than drunk driving and reckless driving. Maybe that’s because it
seems so harmless. How many times have you heard that ding!
and thought, “I’ll just see who it is”? Or you’re singing
your heart out with your friends, and you focus more on the song than
the road. Every time, you’ve been distracted and put yourself, your
passengers, and others on the road at risk. When travelling at 55mph,
the average speed limit on a highway, and you take your eyes off the
road for even just five seconds, you’ve already travelled the
length of a football field. That’s plenty of time for a
catastrophic accident to occur (CDC Motor Safety). Distracted driving
is more than just not looking at the road. Have you ever gotten to
work or school or the grocery store and thought, “I have no idea
how I got here. I don’t remember the drive at all”? While you
might not be looking at your phone, you’re still preoccupied and
not paying enough to driving. This is just as dangerous as checking
your phone, but even harder to prevent as most people don’t realize
they’re putting themselves at risk until after the fact.
While we cover the dangers of distracted driving in drivers ed and we
all know texting and driving is dangerous, once we get behind the
wheel, that all seems to disappear. If we actually put into practice
what we know about safe driving habits, the roads would be a much
safer place. When we get behind the wheel of a car, we are taking
responsibility for the safety of those around us as well as
ourselves. Therefore, it is our obligation to ensure we are doing all
we can to drive safely. Easy changes, like keeping the music at a
reasonable volume or putting our phones on silent until we reach our
destination, can make our driving exponentially safer. By making
these minor adjustments, we would have less distractions, so we can
better focus our attention on driving safely. I am blessed to be able
to say that I have never been in an accident, but so many more people
could be able to say that, because these distractions can be easily
eliminated. I know I have made mistakes while driving, no one is
perfect, but every time I find myself checking a text in the car, I
think back to my uncle. The thought of causing that kind of pain to
anyone encourages me to immediately eradicate any distractions and
focus on driving safely. A major factor in my effort to drive safely
is that when I drive while entertaining distractions, I am not just
putting myself at risk, but everyone else around me. Driving safely
saves lives, and we all need to work together and encourage those
around us to drive safer so we can reduce the number of car accidents
each year, especially fatal ones.
References:
“Distracted
Driving.” Centers for Disease Control and Prevention,
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 16 Sept. 2019,
www.cdc.gov/motorvehiclesafety/distracted_driving/index.html.
“National
Motor Vehicle Crash Causation Survey Report to Congress.” July
2008, crashstats.nhtsa.dot.gov/Api/Public/ViewPublication/811059 .
