Eyes Up, Stay Sharp

Celine
Ly

Driver’s
Ed Initiative

Eyes
Up, Stay Sharp

Driving—to
many, it means freedom: free to go anywhere, anytime. A step into
adulthood. To make one’s own decisions. However, “With great
power comes great responsibility.” After all, a driver’s
decisions on the road do affect others; decisions to fly through a
red light, not fully stopping at a stop sign, or driving under the
influence do have negative consequences. Unfortunately, in today’s
day and age, the young demographic seems to be too careless. They
drink and drive or text and drive. Far too often do I witness a
frightening sight of my friends and relatives: one hand barely grasps
the steering wheel while the other hand types away on the phone. I
cannot help but to feel anxious when they look down on their phone
instead of the road ahead. It is terrifying to imagine what would
happen if they do not disengage from their phone in time to stop in
the case of an emergency. To make matters worse, people have grown
far too attached to their phones due to the huge role social media
plays in popular culture. In fact, many send Snapchat streaks, vlog
on Youtube, and post on their Insta Stories all while driving. People
have this impulse to let others what they are doing at any given
moment, and thanks to social media, it is easier than ever to do so.
No wonder the number one cause of death is car crashes—there are
too many distractions! Frankly, the culmination of poor driving
behavior impacts hundreds and hundreds of others on the road. In a
split second, everything can change because of one poor choice. It
does not have to be this way.

I
propose a feature on the phone that temporarily shuts down apps,
particularly social media apps, when entering a vehicle. Once the
driver buckles his/her seatbelt, apps like Instagram, Snapchat,
Facebook, YouTube, and iMessage cannot be opened. As a result, the
driver will focus on the main task at hand—driving safely,
especially when others are in the car. Furthermore, I suggest an app
that sends an automated text that says, “I am driving right now.
Talk to you later” to incoming calls and texts.

Additionally,
the driving test course should resemble real roads. As a matter of
fact, my driving test was on an enclosed course rather than a real
road. The fastest I could go was 20 mph, but even then my instructor
told me to slow down. Real roads have faster speed limits, such as 50
or 60 mph. Not only that, there were no traffic lights on the course
so when I got on the real road, I was flustered. Undoubtedly, we need
to take action regarding the car crash epidemic, and these features
and reforms are steps in the right direction. After all, “Change
will not come if we wait for some other person, or if we wait for
some other time. We are the ones we’ve been waiting for. We are the
change that we seek.”