Propensity to Look Down

Growing up in California I always knew to expect the overwhelming number of cars on the freeway, and even down the street from my house. I had a weird idea in my head that made driving much scarier. Multiply the percentage of my own propensity to be distracted by a thousand, and that’s how likely you are to get in an accident. The numbers are startling. It’s obvious you are bound to get hurt on the road. Thank goodness I have never been involved in or witnessed, firsthand, the devastation of a car swerving in the street! I looked up the statistics: thirteen percent of reported accidents are from distracted drivers. Since this accident analysis pertains to me, I will focus on distracted driving as opposed to drunk driving. I find it difficult to leave well enough alone on the road. Taking the wheel of your car in your hands becomes a side gig after a few years of driving around town, and that leads to many mistakes. What could you be doing instead of looking straight at the road? You could be thinking of what song to play next. Thinking itself is the killer because it leads to “doing”. Next you are changing the station on your phone, then texting someone you forgot to say “Happy Birthday” to! Then BAM. Who knows the severity of said Bam… Well, that is my anecdote. So how do we prevent this attention deficit from affecting ourselves and our loved ones? I say we leave our phones at home. I think we should aim at the fundamental nature of texting in general and tell our youth that… IT’S OKAY to not respond to every stimuli the world offers you. To sit still is to be happy. I read somewhere that people should learn how to prioritize responsibly. That means sectioning off the things in your life that are important vs. meaningful. There is an optimistic outcome to this. We get rid of the stuff that tricks us into slavery, and opt for the experiences that make life worth living. An example of something that is meaningful is attending your niece’s graduation (you need to drive there, by the way). An example of something that is important is: pushing that appointment with Cheryl from the “Something Place” until next tuesday. As you may notice, there are a lot more important things than there are meaningful things, so if you prioritize the prior, it makes life a lot easier to navigate. This premise won’t immediately impact the lives of drivers everywhere, but I am under the impression that it would make us healthier, more focused and in control. In short, my solution to being a safer driver is to avoid reacting to everything that beeps and buzzes. The world was better off before.

I made a pinky promise with my mom that I would stop glancing at the phone while driving if she did too. It’s one of those addiction promises that you make with your friend ie. smoking, drinking, cursing. Well maybe not cursing, but I, personally, am trying not to curse. If it is an addiction to be on our phones, then why is it not more widely discussed. Having a phone on your person should be acknowledged as something that diminishes your health. And while I know that I am writing about the causes and effects of bad driving, I still think it is sad that technology has become such a staple in our day to day life. After all, we carry two things with us everywhere we go: our phone and our car!

Every fifteen minutes someone passes away from an automobile accident. I am grateful to this organization, and my high school especially, for reintroducing this reality to me time and time again. When I was in high school we attended a seminar where five or six of our graduating class volunteered to put on a play or an act about themselves being the victim of a very bloody car accident. The sense of peace fleeted from the room as we watched a fake video of them being carted to the emergency and operated on. Their real parents wrote a fake eulogy describing the playfulness of their deceased youth, so soon taken away due to a drunk/distracted driving accident. It was really sad, more so because we knew them. I just hope that everyone stays aware when they are out on the road. More people die of car accidents than has ever been during the last several wars, ranging between 36,000 and 48,000 every year. A last thought that I will leave you with is one I originally began with: If minds were worlds, there are a lot of them out there, all equally excitable but prone to error. The gravity of the thought is enough to stabilize you in the moment, raise your guard and appreciate the world around you. Be safe in cars!