It Only Took One Second

In
November of 2019, I was in a car accident. I got my license that
earlier April and used became the designated driver for all of my
friends. It was November 12th and I was in Lancaster city in
Pennsylvania where my friends and boyfriend at the time lived. I was
hanging out with my one friend and left his house to go see my
boyfriend after his swim practice, about 10 minutes away. I remember
turning right from the neighborhood on a busy street but the next
thing I know an airbag has gone off in my face and there was dust
everywhere. I tried to put the car into park and instead went into
neutral backing into the car behind me. I looked around where I could
for my phone because the last time I remember it was in my hand and
it was not nearby. I unbuckled my seat belt and pried open my door
which was being pushed close by a piece of metal from the hood. I
don’t remember the accident very well due to the fact the airbag
caused a serious concussion that I still deal with to this day, but
my attention was not on the road when traffic was backed up and I
rear-ended the person in front of me going 40 MPH. The domino effect
caused 5 total cars to be in the accident. The middle-aged woman in
front of me cussed me out while the gentleman behind me with his
3-year-old son was very kind and helped everyone out of their cars.
Although one younger man had a nose bleed, I was the only one
seriously injured with a sprained thumb that needed a cast and a
concussion. The car that I was going to buy from my parents was
totaled along with all my memories from learning to drive and family
road trips. I spent years looking forward to buying it and having it
as my own and it was destroyed. We used my saved money and the
insurance money to buy a new car, but my life was completely derailed
and I badly impacted other people’s lives because I was driving
irresponsibly. Luckily no one was killed, but I never knew how simply
not paying attention for a second could completely change my life or
even kill someone until I got into that accident. It shouldn’t have
needed to be an accident for me to learn that. People, especially
teenagers, need to be taught the severity of their actions and truly
the amount of pain that could come from just looking away for a
second. Since then I never touch my phone and always face the road
while driving and I talk openly about my accident hoping that people
will understand driving safely can reduce accidents and death due to
driving irresponsibly.