I never thought it could happen to me

I never thought it would be me. I was super late to my Saturday reffing shift at the YMCA, and after a rushed morning, I didn’t even have time to look at my phone before I hopped into the car to head to my destination. Today was the day of homecoming, and as student council president I was anxious about every moving part. My phone burned like an ember in my pocket, almost tempting me to use it. It couldn’t hurt to look at it for just a second, right? I picked up my phone and noticed my friend had sent me a chat. In the 5 seconds it took me to open my phone, the car in front of me had braked to gear up for a turn. I looked up at the last second, and collided with the car going 65 miles per hour. I was instantly knocked unconscious, and my car shot off the side of the road into a ditch. I awoke just seconds later to burns all along my arms and a pounding headache. It felt like I had been on my phone just seconds before, and now I sat trapped in my car in a ditch 15 minutes away from my house. My phone also got launched to the back of my car during the accident, and I had no way of calling anyone to help me out of this situation. Within 10 minutes, the cops arrived and helped me out of my car, and my parents arrived soon after. Everyone who saw the accident happen assumed I had been killed or severely injured, but I somehow walked out essentially unscathed. The police told me after that my last ditch effort to turn to avoid the car was the reason I was still alive. Basically, if I hadn’t looked up in time, I would be dead. Both my car and the one I hit were easily totalled, and my phone was also ironically shattered. I take full responsibility for this accident, but I believe it could be prevented for others in the future. Driver’s education is a great class, but the topic of phones in the car is almost taboo. Teenagers today are the first generation who have completely grown up with phones influencing every aspect of their lives, and it’s hard to give that up when they enter the driver’s seat. Our phones control our music, messages, and calls while we are driving, but for some older cars like mine, this all has to be done manually, not on a screen. I always thought I was too good of a driver to let this kind of interference affect my driving, and that was almost a fatal mistake. To save more lives, it needs to be drilled into students’ minds that distracted driving is almost as bad as driving under the influence of alcohol. My teacher did a great job at explaining the risks of drunk driving, and described the ridicule people would face due to their selfish act. Distracted driving is no different. It is a selfish act that only harms the driver’s safety, but also the safety of every other driver, passenger, and pedestrian on the road. Also, if other teens like me were able to tell their stories about the risks of distracted driving, I believe the crash rate could be lowered across the nation. To further lower the percentage of distracted driving, drivers ed classes should encourage parents to download apps to track their child’s phone behavior while driving. This holds the student to a higher degree of accountability, and almost certainly lowers the probability of a crash. At the beginning of my driver ed orientation, various forms were handed out that explained the process of getting your driver’s permit and eventual license to the student and their parents. It would be so simple to hand out a form explaining these apps and their usefulness in preventing distracted driving. I was beyond lucky for the way my accident turned out, and quite literally a millisecond away from death. In the weeks that followed, I healed from the whiplash, and learned from my terrible mistake. Since the accident, whenever I’m driving, I prequeue a playlist and turn my phone on do not disturb. I also stuff it in the glovebox, and keep it out of sight and mind. I feel it is my responsibility to tell others of my story, because there have been many teens that did not survive crashes similar to mine. I hope that what I’ve learned can be shared to millions of other teens, effectively saving millions of lives in the future.