Out of Sight, Out of Mind- your life’s at risk.

Most teens and even some adults believe that “it won’t happen to them” because for many it’s true that if it’s out of sight, then it’s out of mind. I personally haven’t had anyone close to me get in a car accident and if they did, it definitely wasn’t too bad or else it would have stuck with me. However, I will always remember those two days of my senior year because the reality of car crashes was real to me during those two days and almost all of the days following them. I was sitting on the bleachers with the rest of the senior and junior classes with a deadly scene before my eyes. While I may not be able to recall every single detail, it’s hard to forget what happened that day. In front of all of us there was a bloody scene, I stared at a car that had contained some of my classmates, faces that I knew, covered and drenched in blood. The car itself was dented and the students in it were motionless, yet I had the nerve to think I wish I was down there. The reason why I wished I was down there is because fortunately for everyone it was a mock scene that we were warned of in advance and even had the opportunity to sign up as a participant for within the scene. It might have been a mock scene, however, as it started to play out before my eyes nothing about it seemed unreal; in fact, it felt way too real for me. The sirens of the police car as it approached the accident that was real, the screams of a student begging for someone to call for help that was real, the police making a student walk a straight line that was also real, all of this was way too real for me. After that one student screamed for help and the police car approached, I remember watching the police officers making one student do a breathalyzer test, count backwards or something like that, and walk in a straight line. I also remember seeing the fire fighters using the jaws of life to get one of the students out of the car; seeing how bad a car looks after the jaws of life tool tore the car apart evokes deep emotions and makes the scene even more real. But trust me that alone wasn’t enough to make the scene memorable, imagine having a limo and helicopter outside of your school. Cool, right? Wrong. That limo was actually a hearse, and that helicopter was a medical helicopter. But they weren’t just there for the looks, I watched as my classmate from the study body council got put into a body bag and placed into the back of a hearse. I watched the ambulance people checking for pulses, attempting CPR, and even placing the white covering over a body. I was no longer thinking that I wish I were down there as a participant instead I was trying to hold back my tears as I watched one student get placed in a police car with handcuffs, another student in an ambulance, one loaded into a hearse, and the other into a medic helicopter. This scene was becoming reality to me, a real possibility, it was no longer something I just heard people say could happen since it was actually happening before my eyes. It didn’t stop there though, I watched as the ambulance sped away with its sirens on and as the helicopter soon disappeared in the air and the rest of the vehicles left; neither this scene nor the tears that I was holding back could be more real. As we headed into the building, I kept thinking that I’ll forever be grateful for getting to experience that and that it’s time someone did something about that. This was only the first of the two days that this program took place; this program depending on where you live is either called every 15 or every 50 minutes, to show how often someone dies in a car accident. That very first day, the same day as the mock car accident, the sheriff came into classrooms reading student obituaries as the students would walk out of the classroom with powder covering their face to symbolize that they had died (I’m pretty sure it was made to make them look like a ghost). Luckily for me, none of the students who had “died” were in my class, so I didn’t have to witness this part firsthand but nonetheless it still hurt. That day when the mock scene took place there was also a grim reaper on the scene surrounded by those participants who had their obituaries read out loud in class. All of this happened in one day, but it was enough to make me feel like there should be tons of laws in place and that people should be protesting for car safety measures to be put into place. I believe that everyone needs to experience this at least once in their lifetime to get the experience ingrained in their minds, so that the saying out of sight out of mind doesn’t become a reality. I never want to forget that day nor do I want to forget the second day of the program when all of us seniors packed the auditorium, and I had thought the most emotional part of the program had already occurred the previous day, but I found out that I was extremely wrong. On the second day we watched a video that provided a background story, and it showed the accident and what lead up to it in a fun short film type of way, but this wasn’t all that we heard or saw; we then viewed multiple videos of people telling their stories or stories of what happened to a loved one due to negligent and unsafe driving. In addition to that, we had actual people who were present walk onto the stage and tell their stories; I specifically remember one of a teen driver who lost her unborn child due to a drunk driver. When I was in the auditorium that day, I remember strongly wanting to take action to get laws put into place to prevent this and as hard as I tried to hold my tears that day, I’m sure I spilled a lot of tears; I remember right afterwards I felt that if I were to say anything that I’d end up in uncontrollable tears. The reason I’m telling this story is because I believe that if every teen in this country including those who are homeschooled got to experience this then we could get rid of the whole out of sight out of mind stigma; when we don’t see things happen too often or at all, then it all begins to sound like a myth. However, if we can recall a time something happened when we did or didn’t do certain things, then we’re more likely to see it as a reality meaning people will be more likely to question their actions before committing them. For example, if someone were to question whether or not they should drive after having just a few sips of alcohol and they were then to recall the memory of a crash like the mock scene, then they’d be more likely to consider against driving due to the memories. One of my solutions to decreasing car crashes is by having everyone experience this because it’s still stuck with me to this day, that’s how I know that it’s impactful. Not only that, but thanks to a social media video I saw, I also think that it’s important to educate students about what to do before they get in a car to avoid a crash and if they happen to get in a crash what to do after to avoid further injuries. In this social media video that I viewed, the creator films a car that has just been in a crash and gives the viewers a view of an ambulance. The creator also used words on the video and mentioned how he or she had got into the car angry and regretted that decision because the creator had put a whole family in jeopardy and him or herself. While most people are aware of behaviors such as texting while driving, drinking and driving, and other forms of distracted driving, I believe there are so many other forms of impairment that people don’t consider, including people’s mood and wearing the wrong clothes, which can cause them to get into a crash. During my sophomore year of high school, my school had a law firm come to talk to us about driving safety and they also had car accident survivors all of whom suffered severe brain damage talk to us which I believe is another useful tactic that should be employed by all schools. The law firm representative who talked to us not only had PowerPoint, but he also had gift cards that he gave to some students if they answered him correctly which I feel like is a very useful tactic to get teens to listen to any presentation. Most teens see presentations in auditoriums as a time to talk to friends however if they’re engaged and provided with incentives it becomes fun and they may even take away some of the information. Two of the survivor stories that I remembered is one of a guy who tried to mix up lots of caffeinated drinks to stay awake while driving and the other who got out of his car and ended up getting beat up badly by the person who he got in a car crash with. While my school held both a mock scene and did presentations for us during a previous school year, it’s not good to over emphasis and constantly mention the problem to students because if people hear the same thing over and over again then it all begins to sound like a myth to them. I personally believe that these tactics that my school used were effective because they introduced us to driving safety skills when we became the legal age to drive and then they later (during our senior year) showed us what would happen if we didn’t drive safely. All of the methods I have previously mentioned can help to reduce deaths related to car crashes. However, there are still many more methods and things that can be done to reduce the amount of car crash related deaths.

While targeting young people and trying to install in them good driving habits is helpful in reducing deaths related to car accidents, none of this matters if we don’t start with the adults and those who have influence over these new drivers. As someone who takes public transportation, I see drivers talk on their phones, eat food and sip drinks, and engage in other bad driving behaviors all the time, and by doing so they send the message to the younger drivers that it’s not a big deal. However, it is a big deal. While it may be hard to stop people from completely engaging in such behaviors, I do believe that we can influence people to do so in smart ways if they feel like they absolutely must engage in such behaviors. For instance, it makes sense for a hungry driver to go through a drive-thru and order food however instead of eating it as they are driving, we could encourage teens and adults to wait until the next red light before they eat. If we were to start slogans like eat only at red lights if one must eat, then we can potentially decrease the number of crashes due to inattentive driving. I also believe that we have the power to change people’s bad driving habits by giving them new habits such as the one mentioned above; if we were to scold people for bad behavior then they’d likely reconsider their behavior to avoid being scolded. Everything that we do and don’t say sends a message to the driver as to whether their behavior is acceptable or not and it takes a whole society to help create a societal norm. Let’s make safe driving the norm of our society.

Drivers’ education classes are highly important in reducing the number of deaths and injuries due to car crashes. Personally, I believe that it’s valuable because as a first-time driver with no experience the course will teach you what to do if certain things happen that you otherwise would find yourself lost about. I say this because my school required all of its students to take drivers ed in order to graduate and during the course they taught us about different problems that may occur while we’re on the road and I don’t feel like parents are able to prepare teens with the wide range of things that might go wrong while on the road since most parents haven’t taken the driver’s education course or relearned the information in years. While those reasons lead me to believe that driver’s education is important, statistics on the other hand doesn’t credit drivers education classes as being very effective, if effective at all. I say this because when I looked for articles on the importance of driver’s education courses in reducing car crashes, I couldn’t find any articles to prove this idea. In addition to that, I found it surprising that “3.8 million vehicle accident fatalities [occur which is] … more than three times the number of American war casualties (Molino and Molino).” If a single student can learn one fact about driving that can help prevent him or her from getting into an accident, then I believe that this course is highly worth it. I find it crazy that we lose more people to car crashes then compared to some battles that are on land where bullets and bombs are flying around; so, to me it’s definitely worth having students take drivers education classes because if we can save one more person by doing so than we’re making progress. I also believe that by having students take this course that it may make them confident when certain situations arise.

I also believe that we should create a stimulator that mimics a real car and allows people to experience situations firsthand so that when the real thing happens their unconscious mind will take over and get them out of the situation. We spend lots of money training doctors with stimulations that mimic humans because we value our life, we should also value our lives and everyone else’s while on the road in cars. In the event that something does happen and a person loses control of the car due to things like weather because they practiced having that happen to them , it’s more likely than not that they would be knowledgeable as to what to do and even if they forgot there’s a chance that their muscle memory and subconscious memory may remember which may cause them to act instinctively. This is why I believe that all schools should be required to have some sort of car stimulation that would allow students to experience both common and uncommon occurrences that may happen to them on the road so that the students can make the mistakes now and not later when it matters; if students make mistakes when it comes to a stimulation nobody gets hurt and they’ll learn from those mistakes however on the road every mistake made can result in a life being taken. While I know that a car stimulation machine such as the one I’m talking about doesn’t yet exist, and if it does then it doesn’t’ exist in large numbers, I believe that saving lives is worth spending the millions of dollars or even billions of dollars that it would take to do the research and build such things. Americans spend billions of dollars in war, and according to statistics presented from the National Driving and Traffic School within the span of two years the total amount of deaths related to driving exceeds the number of deaths accumulated within the Vietnam war, which is a war that lasted for about 14 years (Driver Education Initiative Award – Annual Scholarship Opportunity, 2023). By spending a few billion dollars today or tomorrow, it will save so many lives in the long-term and due to the number of car related deaths declining we would then have more money and resources to spend elsewhere.

In life we often don’t imagine we can do or be something unless we see it happen to others; similarly to that idea, we don’t think things like fatal car crashes are likely to happen to us because we don’t see it occur too often. This is why it’s important that everyone sees what can happen and that people have positive driving influencers such as parents; what we see is what we believe, if the adults in a teen’s life drive reckless then it’s safe to assume the same may be true for those teens. While we can’t prevent all car crashes from happening let’s remember what we can do to be safe drivers, so that we save a few lives, if not many.

Works cited:

Driver Education Initiative Award – Annual Scholarship Opportunity. Drivers Ed & Traffic School – DmvEdu.org. (2023, September 8). https://www.dmvedu.org/scholarship/

Molino, Jason, and Jason Molino. “Death From War Vs Death From Motor Vehicle Collisions – Scranton Law Firm.” Scranton Law Firm – the Accident Attorneys, 30 May 2023, Death From War vs Death From Motor Vehicle Collisions – Scranton Law Firm