The Hills

In December of fifth grade, I visited my hometown, Little Rock, Arkansas, during my much-awaited Christmas break. My mom had driven us all the way from Houston, Texas. That drive was the longest eight hours of the year, and we always visited home every other holiday. The morning we would be leaving to return to Houston quickly arrived. I assisted my mom in loading the trunk with my new toys and our luggage. Before getting on the highway, we stopped at our family’s favorite pizza spot, Shotgun Dan’s, to get some food and to bring back their one-of-a-kind pizza to my cousins in Texas. Shotgun Dan’s only had locations in Arkansas, so it’s tradition to make the stop at some point during our trip. Although, we usually made it out of the parking lot in one piece. 

We pulled forward to the drive-thru window to pick up our order. The heat from the pizza boxes warmed my legs – one of my favorite feelings as a kid. My mom taught me to always check the food before driving off, so I opened the boxes to reveal the delicacy I had been waiting for. After slyly stealing a sausage from one of the gigantic pizza slices, I close the box and we exit the drive-thru onto the main road. As my mom drives up to the exit from Shotgun Dan’s, I notice the cliff to the right of the lane. If there’s one thing I’ll never forget about Arkansas, it would be their infinite hills. The next thing I know, I hear my mom subtly, yet frantically, say one of those words kids weren’t allowed to say. She attempted to put the car in reverse, but it was too late. Like a domino effect, a black Nissan rear-ended a red Chevy which crashed into a Ram truck turning into the restaurant, which then slammed the front of our car. As the weight of the multi-vehicle accident forced us to the curb, my heart stopped beating. I thought I was going to die. I will never forget the loud sounds that were erected from the collision. The second the car’s movement began to stop, my mom yelled at me to urgently get out of the vehicle. At my young age at the time, I only became more emotional when my parent yelled at me. Regardless, I opened the car door and ran down the hill. When I got to the bottom, all I could see was four wrecked cars, one of which was ours that looked like it would soon fall off the cliff. I felt alone, trapped, and afraid for my life as I waited for my mom to rescue me from the emotional trauma I had just experienced. Thankfully, a few moments later, she was able to exit from the passenger door. 

A person’s smallest action can have the biggest impact on another individual. Life is granted only once. We live in a world of hustle, and every second people are grinding to make the best of their precious lifetime. The roads are a privilege that we use to get to where we need to be with convenience. Reckless drivers do not deserve to play a part in the lives of other, responsible, drivers. I urge all individuals reading this to hold themselves, and others, accountable because not everyone survives a crash as I did. 

Be self-aware. Don’t drive when you’ve gotten too few hours of sleep. Don’t put yourself and other’s lives at risk while rushing in traffic because you didn’t leave the house on time. Life will always be more important, so represent that through your driving habits. The ability to predict the actions of other drivers is a skill that mostly comes with more years of driving experience. Even so, there are patterns that drivers should be attentive to that may indicate a driver could be driving while distracted. Signs include swerving in and out of lanes, braking constantly, irregular driving speeds, not turning off turn signals after merging, and many more indications. We must accept the fact that accidents occur when some, or all, parties are not being consciously attentive to other drivers. While things can happen in an instant, a lot of accidents can be predicted within a few seconds of the collision. Thinking back, my mom envisioned the collision before it occurred because she was being attentive which is the first step to avoid being involved in an accident. There wasn’t enough time to fully avoid the accident, but by being able to predict the possible outcomes of another driver’s actions, we avoided a potentially fatal crash. 

Any time I spend in a vehicle, whether on the bus, in an Uber, or going somewhere with my parents, I remain conscious of their driving habits. Drivers will oftentimes take a few moments to text someone back or to double-check the route. I always speak up when I see these dangerous acts being performed, especially when they affect the person’s driving ability and awareness. It’s been roughly a year and a half since completing my driver’s education lessons to obtain my license, and I have experienced so many of the dangerous scenarios mentioned in my training. My biggest takeaway is to pay attention to the roads because any moment could be my last.