The Importance of Educated Drivers: Awareness and Distracted Driving

Going through some type of driver education institution should be a priority for all new drivers, especially new young drivers. However, Learning the mechanics and rules of the road is only half the battle. I believe that there needs to be more emphasis on teaching drivers the importance of being safe on the road as well as the importance of giving full attention to the road when one is driving. There are too many deaths and serious injuries involving distracted drivers, whether it be via phone calls, texting, talking to passengers, or simply just being unaware of their surroundings. Nation Wide, in the year 2024, distracted driving was the cause of 3,000 deaths, and over 400,000 injuries. These deaths and injuries could so easily have been avoided if drivers took more accountability for being safe on the road.

As a senior in high school, the biggest issue I see happening with distracted driving involves other teenagers and people my age so hyper-fixed on their phones. On a side note, phones in this generation are becoming so addictive and teenagers are depending on them more and more. You would think that people would set this aside when other lives and their own depend on it but no, not really. The amount of times I pull into my school parking lot and see students glancing down and texting while they drive is concerning. Just recently, we had a guest speaker come into my school, and tell her story about her traumatic car wreck, where she lost both her parents and all movements in the left side of her body. Her story left many of the students, Including me, in tears. I think that more stories and real examples of these possibilities should be shared especially with teenagers. It can be so easy for kids to disregard what their parents, relatives, teachers, and other adults explain to them about texting and driving, but when it comes from people with real stories and when they put it into perspective, I believe it could get through to even the most stubborn teenagers.

To be honest, I used to have an uncaring mindset when it came to distracted driving as well. I never texted and drove, however, I would keep my AirPods in, answer a phone call, or simply just zone out while driving. One day, I was driving with my brother to a sports practice, and I stopped at a four-way stop, and then began to drive when I saw there was no one on either side of me. Further down the road, on my right side, the passenger side, there was a pickup with a horse trailer on the back approaching the intersection. I glanced at the truck but didn’t think much of the situation because I figured the pickup would stop since it was a four-way stop. My brother was sitting in the passenger side, where the pickup was approaching. The pickup didn’t stop. The next thing I knew, my car was pushed up onto the sidewalk and through the stop sign. My little brother faced serious injuries and I was stuck in the car holding the side of his head to slow down his bleeding. The amount of blood and how crushed my car led me to think the worst of my brother’s situation. I thought I was going to lose him all because I didn’t wait for the pickup to stop at his side of the four-way. The man who hit us had his family and kids in the car also, putting him and his family in danger. They faced no injuries, and his only excuse for not stopping was he didn’t realize there was a stop sign there. If I had been more aware of how fast the pickup was going and waited at the stop sign before going, and if the man who hit me had paid more attention to his surroundings to see the stop sign, my brother wouldn’t have been hurt. After this accident, I have continued to take distracted driving very seriously and I am much more aware of my surroundings.

Now that I know how drastic the effects of distracted driving can be, I stress to all my friends to stay off their phones and be aware of their surroundings when driving. There are too many instances where I am with friends, and the driver glances at their phone from a notification. Just one glance down can change the course of someone’s driving in seconds. Before I had gotten into my accident, I never said anything about these situations, no matter how uncomfortable I felt. It is important to speak up if you do not feel like you are safe while driving. I always say something when someone I am driving with tries to pick up their phone behind the wheel. After my brother recovered, I talked to him about the accident. He later told me that he had seen that the pickup truck was driving pretty quickly, and he didn’t think he would stop before I noticed it. I felt so guilty, because if he had told me he didn’t think the man would stop, he may not have gotten hurt. I would’ve waited for him to pass, and we would’ve made it through without the wreck.

Being an educated driver about the rules of the road is extremely important, but there needs to be more accountability, especially among teenagers, for distracted driving. I encourage others to think about the risks they are taking every time they think a text message turning up their radio, or trying to multitask while driving is more important than paying attention to the road and their surroundings. The amount of injuries and deaths that are caused by distracted driving is far too much, especially because it can so easily be avoided. I think more stories like mine, and many others need to be shared with schools and teenagers to make kids think about how serious distracted driving can be. No one ever thinks an accident will happen to them until it is too late. Emphasizing stories of distracted driving in driver education truly would benefit young drivers and all drivers in general.