You’re on the road, and you look around. Maybe the person in the car next to you is on their phone doomscrolling on TikTok. Perhaps you are a passenger bearing witness to a couple yelling over each other while the husband is driving. Or maybe you are the one behind the wheel, staring into space even when the light turns green. Distracted driving can show itself in many ways, and it is a more common occurrence than some of us may think; I didn’t realize I could ever be affected by it until I was forced to ride with my crazy driver aunt.

I cannot remember the exact details. I was young, and my mom couldn’t drive me home from my cousin’s because of work, so she had my aunt drive me instead. She took me to her car–just a small, average sized vehicle with some scratches–and I sat inside. I thought it would just be a normal drive where I could silently watch the trees and stores pass by while my relative drove.

I was… half-right.

We hadn’t exchanged a single word. I could stare out the window, and the stores would pass by. Fast. Too fast. They blurred into each other until eventually they formed a solid gray, and my stomach flipped from the speed of the car. I turned away from the window to see my aunt with her ears fully plugged with earbuds, and she was speaking. At first, I thought she was talking to me, but as I tuned into what she was saying, I realized she was calling someone with no regard for the child in her car. She was on a call while changing music on her phone, no hands on the wheels, and she was driving me with her eyes not on the road. I couldn’t even tell her to turn her earbuds’ volume down because how could she listen when her earbuds were so loud I could hear them from the backseat?  I had never feared for my life more than I did in those ten minutes of my life.

After that experience, my mother never let me ride with anyone else again. When my friends offer after club, I can’t accept because I won’t be able to explain how I got home without worrying my mother. They always think my mom is too paranoid and that I should trust them to drive me. However, I now understand why my mother sets these rules; she doesn’t trust anyone to drive me after my aunt drove me distracted. If my aunt, who has had her driving license for double of my lifespan, cannot drive safely on the road, then how can I trust my friends with only a few years of experience to drive me?

Again, anyone can drive distracted. Sometimes, my brother drives me from school to the library, and I have caught him, more than once, on Twitter instead of paying attention to the lights when they turn green. I have to look away from my dad when he drives because he always makes eye contact, taking his eyes away from the road. People don’t realize how easy it is to distract themselves from driving, and the issue is that those precious seconds of ignoring the road can be the difference between a car safely crossing the street or slamming into another and destroying itself, costing tens of thousands of dollars and possibly more than one life. Even I didn't realize how distracted driving can show itself. It is invisible, creeping up into your driving habits until you land yourself in a car crash.

Because of this, when my father teaches me how to drive on the weekend, I don’t listen to his advice like not stressing too much or running the yellow lights even when they will soon turn red. No, I will stress on the road and pay attention to all around me. I am not paying the price of inattentive driving with someone else’s life or my own. Even if I ignore the ethics of ignoring others around me, I still need to preserve my own life so I can enjoy it instead of taking it for granted. Running a yellow light when it is red puts me at risk of ramming into another car, thus throwing lives at jeopardy. I know to take these things into account so I can drive safely and undistracted, saving my own and others’ lives.

Distracted driving is all around us. Whether it is happening on a red light when your uber is on a phone or your mother is calling while her eyes are on the road, it reveals itself in any form. Seeing this in real time and having a distracted driver put my life at risk made me realize that I have to be better on the road. Now, I drive safely and bear in mind that not only is my life in my hands but also the drivers around me on the road.