My Take On Distracted Driving

For me reducing the number of driving related deaths hits too close to home, last year a week before we all went home for Christmas break, I lost a friend in a driving related accident, and this tore apart our community at school. The accident was due to drinking and driving and we had so many outlooks and programs at our school that came into place after this and it was good to see but it was horrible that something this bad had to happen for these to come into place.

I am a part of a leadership role at my school, and we are in charge of inducting the new class into the regiment of midshipman here. They must follow a strict set of rules; such as no parties or drinking and they will be punished if they do so. But all of the training staff sat them down and gave them our numbers and said that no matter the time or reason even after they get past there training period, we will always be available to go and pick someone up or to make sure they get back to campus safely. The friend we lost was a part of our year at school and all of the training staff was affected by this, so we all were talking to the incoming class and told them that we will always be there for them, so we don’t have to go through what we went through last year.

There are way too many distracted drivers on the road today due to phones or being under the influence. I want these deaths to come down as much as they can because I have seen what the loss looks like and how it takes a toll on the community. I believe that there are plenty of ways to reduce the number of driving related deaths each year with better education, awareness, and enforcements of the law regarding to distracted drivers in any sense. I believe there should be more education on texting and driving and show more statistics such as how far you travel when you look down or away for just a few seconds at any speed. I feel like texting, and being impaired are some of the biggest causes for driving related deaths nowadays.

I had a speaker come and talk to me in high school, he was paralyzed from the waist down due to drinking and driving and they to me really scared me and put such a strong image in my head for driving safer and being more away doing so. I was always the one to set a designated driver if anything was going to happen and for me the hardest part was taking someone’s keys away from them if they have been drinking. I believe there should be more talks to students, more ways of showing kids how terrible things can be due to distracted driving and all the negative side effects that come with it. You’re not only hurting yourself but the amount of damage you can cause is unmeasurable.

I wish there were more ways of enforcing texting and driving and better technology for preventing this, I know there are some features on phones now that can mute texts or calls while you are driving however sometimes you have to enable this setting and you have to be very self-aware and self-conscious to turn this on and people are forgetful. I wish there was a technology to sense when you’re driving and make it so that you don’t have to enable it and it being more of a smart feature, I feel like this will help with distracted driving. For the drinking and driving it is more of a self-aware feature and it’s a harder thing to enforce without checkpoints and that takes manpower and a lot of time. There needs to be more talks and teachings regarding drinking and driving or any impaired driving. We have a sex education course in school why can’t there be an impaired or distracted driving course. This can be in the sense of going through your school, or a class you must take more extensively before you can get your license. Maybe have to attend a webinar from someone effected by distracted driving or driving impaired.

In all of the topics I discussed I believe that education is one of the most important things that needs to be addressed in regard to distracted driving and driving impaired and it needs to be discussed soon and action needs to be taken, so the loss of life comes down fast.