Driver safety

Driving is a responsibility and task that requires the attention of the operator at all times so that those in the car and those around the car remain safe. Teen drivers in particular have a harder time with this because being a teen makes you feel invincible. You don’t think about what happens after the fact. Multitasking while driving is exceptionally high among teenage drivers because we think we can do anything. Add on top of that, friends in the car and loud music, and it spells disaster waiting to happen. There are ways that this can be reduced, especially by parents in particular, apps that can monitor phone usage while driving like that of life360, limits on who can go in the car with their teen, teaching them how to be more responsible, and setting rules for themselves about how they drive. All of these in theory could work when put in practice, but the sad truth is that it really is easier said than done. Social media in particular messes with teen drivers more so than texting because of the way it wires the brain to work, especially that of a teenager. Receiving likes on instagram, snapchats from friends, and texts from girlfriends/boyfriends all release dopamine to the brain, much like that of drugs, that stimulate it and leave it craving for more. Truly limiting cell phone use in the car is a hard task because of the way privacy laws are instituted with the inability for apps or manufacturers to truly restrict usage while driving. Several solutions to reduce the urge or remove it entirely from the teenager could come in many ways. Most people use their phones as a gps system, but as cars progress and become more modern, they have built in gps systems within their interfaces. Alongside this, as cars get safer, would be to have a lockbox built in to the console that detects when the car is on roads, be it neighborhood roads, highways, backroads, or regular roads, it would keep the locked away until the car comes to a complete stop at a specified address. Sure, the problem of if they need the phone because they are in danger would arise but most car systems have built in crash detection that notifies the authorities of a crash that happened. Life360 also has this built into it with a crash detection feature. The problem with life360 is that it consists mostly as a tracking app and an alert system, rather than giving parents the control to lock phones while driving. Even though it notifies when the driver is using their cellphone, it cannot stop the user from doing so. Another solution to the problem of distracted teenagers driving, would be that as soon as they enter the car, the phone is blocked from being accessed and can only be used to contact emergency services or immediate family need be. This would stop the need for the phone to be constantly checked, as it would not receive any incoming notifications from anyone unless they are immediate family. Keeping teens safe as they become more familiarized with the road is something that shouldn’t keep parents worried about whether or not their teen will be coming home for dinner and should bypass privacy laws completely due to the nature of keeping the next generation safe.