Name: Catherine Sellmer
From: Sellersburg, Indiana
Votes: 0
Why
it Matters
Imagine
this: one’s sixteenth birthday has come. As soon as she wakes up,
she immediately hops out of bed because she knows what the day will
bring. The beginning of her sixteenth year means one thing: freedom.
She will finally be able to drive herself around, and she feels a
sense of independence. Her mom takes her to the BMV, and after
waiting in line for a little bit, she has received her license. She
drives herself and her mom home, and then she starts getting ready to
go meet some friends. While driving to see her friends, she pulls out
her phone and starts texting. She fails to realize that the person in
front of her stops, and she hits them, forever damaging their life.
Is this what she expected to come of this exciting day?
Being
educated on how to safely drive is important to me because my family
and I have been greatly affected by someone who did not have proper
education on driving. Lives can be saved when people stop driving
distracted. As an educated driver, I know that just a single action I
make when driving can affect many people, not just the driver I hit.
To
reduce the amount of deaths that occur when driving, driver’s
education needs to be more affordable. I was lucky enough to receive
drivers ed because it was something that my parents
budgeted for. It was by no means an easy cost for my family to make,
but we made it work. For others, this financial endeavor is not
possible. Those families who struggle to get food on the table every
night have no room for drivers ed, leading to high death
rate associated with driving. We need to make affordable programs for
drivers ed to those communities that need it the most.
I
have been personally affected by distracted driving. I was in the car
with my grandfather, my brother, and a friend when someone texting
rear-ended us, hitting us multiple times, and pushing us a quarter
mile down the road. I, sitting in the backseat, was pushed all the
way up to the front seat, with glass from the back window all over
me. In the end, my grandfather, my brother, and I all ended up in the
hospital, leaving my grandfather with irreversible brain damage. He
had to give up his love for teaching and was forced to retire because
of one man’s decision to text and drive. He has never been the same
since the accident occurred.
To
become a better driver, I pledge to never text and drive. I will
strive to encourage my friends to never participate in this as well.
Raising awareness for this topic by telling the story of how
distracted driving affected my family is the best way to get others
to take drivers ed more seriously. No text is worth sending
when it can kill others and hurt their family forever.
