I Am Guilty

I am a music lover. I always listen to music when I am in my room, outside, and especially in the car. I listened to the radio when I first started to drive and had to play the music really loud to clearly understand the song lyrics as my car’s radio is not in the best condition. But at this point in my life, I have certain songs and playlists that I want to listen to on my phone. This is the biggest distraction for me as of now because I am very particular with what songs I want to listen to and what songs I do not want to listen to. Because of this driving distraction, I decided to buy a Bluetooth piece that allows me to listen to my music and skip songs when I do not want to listen to them without looking away from the road. This solved my problems because the music does not have to played with volume all the way up, which is a dangerous distraction, and I can skip music without looking down at my screen.

Not only does that Bluetooth device help with my music obsession, but it also helps with my GPS. I do not have the best sense of direction, so I often use the GPS on my phone. Before the Bluetooth device, I had the radio playing and my phone speaking directions to me. When the phone was telling me directions, I could barely hear them and always had to turn the music down and then look over to my phone screen to see what the phone had said. With this Bluetooth device I can listen to my music and hear the GPA directions as the Bluetooth device lowers the music volume when a direction is being said. This is the best of both worlds when it comes to listening to my tunes and not getting lost in a city.

Another distraction of mine are text alerts. For my one caregiver job, I try to work as many shifts as possible. When another caregiver needs a shift covered, they send out a mass text, and because I want to work as many shifts as I can, I want to respond as fast as I can. This is a big distraction because every alert I hear I assume it is a co-worker asking for a shift covered, so I go to look at the text. One of the steps I have taken to avoid this is turning on the do-not-disturb setting on my phone that realizes when I am driving and does not alert me of texts. This is a really good setting that has helped a lot, but sometimes the phone does not realize that I am driving so the setting does not always work. Because of this, I decided to change the text ringtone so that all of the caregivers have a certain, and very distinct, tone. So, if I am driving and my phone gets a text, I can recognize the alert if it is one of the caregivers, and if it is, then I can pull over to look at my phone.

These are just three of the distractions that me and many other drivers often face. As I am writing this essay, I am feeling even more determined to take the extra steps to prevent these distractions from becoming dangerous. It is not easy for one to acknowledge one’s own distracted driving weakness let alone three of them, so this essay opened my eyes and pushed me out of my comfort zone to really reflect on my driving experience and improve on the parts that I have control over. I can say out loud that I am guilty of being a distracted driver, but it is my turn to share these revelations and hope that others will follow in my footsteps.

Whether it is a Bluetooth device, the do-not-disturb setting, or changing the ringtone, these are all steps that have made me a better driver and I hope to share these tips to others too. These changes have made me a safer and better driver, but it will not do me any good if there are other people on the road that are continuing to be distracted by their phone. I am guilty of distracted driving as well as many of my friends and family. I cannot count the number of times I am driving to school with a friend who is changing the song on their phone or responding to a text. Driving distracted is irresponsible and puts many at risk, so I made changes in my life to not only help myself, but hopefully inspire others to make the same or similar changes to make the roads a safer place.

Thank you