Distracted Driving

Two years ago, in the province of Dalian in China, I lost one of my favorite uncles. I remember my uncle sending me to different grandparents and taking me and my sister to various amusement parks. I had no negative interactions with him ever. My cousin was also in the vehicle during the accident. She did not lose her life, but she was hospitalized for severe injuries. She survived and is now paralyzed from the legs down. My uncle died in a car accident as another car ran into him while he was not paying any attention. Like most distracted drivers, my uncle was paying more attention to his mobile device than the surrounding road, while my cousin was also too glued to the phone to warn my uncle. Our internal and external family, friends, and even his dog mourned his death for weeks. That was the first time I have seen a family member pass away. After I took some time to process his death and received the reason he died, I was angry at him. Not only for crippling my cousin but also for leaving my family and his friends extremely sad and broken because of something as insignificant as a text from a mobile device. My intermediate family members have also become more aware of driving after his death. When I got my car, my mother and father insisted I get a car that let me receive and call people instead of having to go on my phone to contact them. If they ever catch me using my phone in my car, I would probably get punished.

After experiencing the loss of my uncle and the grief from almost everyone in my family, I do not want to be put in that situation again. Most of the deaths caused by distracted driving, especially in the past four years, come from people being way too interested in their phone than the steering wheel. Therefore, I think the two best ways to raise awareness about the dangers of being unaware while driving is by making a mandatory app that limits the usage of the phone when the car starts or by showing people the result of other people being distracted while driving.

The first way of getting people to not get distracted while driving is to mandate an app that limits the use of the phone while I turned the car on. This may function like not allowing the user to start any social media apps like snapchat, Instagram, etc. while the car’s engine is on. According to Sergio A. Useche and Luis Montoro of the National Library of Medicine, the “use of mobile phones is among the major factors that lead to traffic accidents” and that “80–90% of traffic incidents” are caused by distractions (4). This means that people using the phone cause an extremely large amount of traffic accidents. Each year, more and more people are getting cellular devices and in relation, there will probably be an increase in the number of accidents caused by the phones. Cars, in the near future, would have pairing options with cell phones. As long as the phone is connected to the car, it would make it possible for the app to recognize when the car is on or off. In another study conducted by the National Library of Medicine, the “use of social media platform” with “WhatsApp causes most of the distractions and Instagram was among the top three applications downloaded” (Useche and Montoro). Most of the other apps on the phone are not really used by drivers in the car. Apps like YouTube are not really used because of the length and people do not tend to go on educational apps while on the car. Social media apps, on the other hand, are easy to access and the posts are extremely easy to read. This is far more prominent for young drivers. Therefore, by not letting people go on their favorite social media app while driving, I truly believe people would go on their phone less and would just focus on driving. This would make the roads far safer, as the driver would have no reason to not focus on the road.

The second and final way of getting people to not get distracted while driving is to show the people, both old and young, what the result of being distracted could do to them. In my opinion, it might be necessary to force the guilty drivers to watch videos of people crashing or animations where the driver crashed due to them being glued to their phone. Any simpler option might result with the drivers completely ignoring the warning altogether, as reading, seeing graphs, or hearing someone else talk about a topic that does not even intrigue them can be extremely boring. Using real time footage or animations may evoke emotions like fear or anxiety. Fear, in this case, helps scare the drivers into doing the opposite action of what they are used to doing. After seeing the videos or animations showing the dangers with real time footage, the drivers would relate to the videos and understand that they may have a much earlier death than normal due to them being distracted. It seems much harsher and more extreme than the first option of enforcing apps, but I believe that showing the reality or result of the driver’s distracting situation could shine a light on their problem. However, even with the benefits, I think forcing people to watch the animations or footages on their own time may lead to the people not watching them. A solution could enforce the animations or the footages to be a necessary video to watch when at the DMV applying for their driver’s license. Another solution could be to make it a necessity to watch alongside having the recommended fifty hours driving experience. This would then fix their problem and the roads would be much safer for everyone.