Highway to Hell

It was 9 o’clock at night during the summer. I was driving my friend home after we had gotten dinner together, and we were singing along to the song “Highway to Hell” by ACDC. I had just taken the doors and roof off my car the night before, and we were having a great time on the way home. It was summer, the night was beautiful, the weather was perfect for driving with the doors and roof off, and there was nothing that could go wrong!

I slowed down to stop at a red light when a force slammed into us from behind. I slammed on the brakes to stop us from rear-ending the person in front of us, and then I pulled off the side of the word. We were both in shock. My friend asked, “What was that?” I was silent for a second before I turned down the music, put the car into Park, and then turned to her in shock.

“We just got rear-ended.”

I put my hazards on, turned off the car, and then went to check the situation out. We got hit pretty hard, so I looked at the damage on my car first. Luckily, the metal bumper was only scratched and dented a little bit. Then I turned to look at who rear-ended us.

The car was destroyed. The whole entire front bumper was crumpled, pieces of headlights were scattered, and fluid was leaking from the engine-bay. I immediately forgot about my car and went to check on the other person.

The girl in the car was a little older than me, and she was sobbing hysterically. She was still in the middle of the busy highway that I had pulled off of, and if the car didn’t get out of the road, someone was likely to barrel into her and cause even more damage. So, I told her to put the car in Neutral and steer. I went behind her and started pushing. I pushed and pushed, and then she was off the road.

We called our parents and the Police, and when the Police came to document the crash, they told me what had happened. She said that she was following a car, and when it turned to avoid me, she hit me. But, the more likely story was that she had been distracted on her phone and wasn’t paying attention to the red light that we were stopped at and crashed right into me.

The song “Highway to Hell” was pretty fitting to be listening to at the time of this accident. Distracted driving creates a lot more Highways to Hell than the one I was on. I was lucky that I wasn’t injured, but there are people who don’t get lucky like me. In fact, the Department of Motor Vehicles quantifies that, “In America, an average of 34,000 people die each year as a result of driving”.

Pulling your phone out to quickly change a song, or text your mom seems easy. But is it really worth putting a life on the line, when you can just pull into a gas station and do it safely? Crashes aren’t reversible. Death certainly isn’t reversible. Don’t make an irreversible mistake because you think it is more convenient to be distracted.

Driver education is crucial in solving this issue. Many people don’t understand the consequences of their actions. Thus, increasing education and forcing people to think about the very real and very dangerous consequences of distracted driving is imperative. When people understand this, they are less likely to take part in actions that they know can have horrible results. Scientific research proves this as well.

A 2014 Southern Adventist University research paper – Does Driver Safety Education have an Impact on Texting While Driving? – found that driver safety education resulted in, “a change in driver perceptions of the hazards associated with texting and driving”. Furthermore, “the effects of the educational intervention continued to have a positive influence four weeks post education”. This means that driver education made drivers more aware of the hazards associated with distractions.

So, steps that can be taken to reduce the deaths on the road could include more education. Of course, there is not one perfect decision. However, making drivers education courses more interactive and accessible would help drivers with understanding their actions. Plus, hearing from individuals with firsthand experience would be useful in making the consequences of distracted driving more real because people are more likely to sympathize with a real person instead of a video.

Lastly, what steps should you take as a driver to mitigate distracted driving? The obvious answer is to – drum roll please! – not drive distracted! Of course, if it was that simple, no one would be impacted by distracted driving. So – besides not driving distracted – you should take steps to be a defensive driver. Always be one step ahead of the vehicles around you. Stay a safe distance away from the cars in front of you, always check your blind spots, and always check your mirrors to make sure no one is about to barrel into you.

Another action you can take is to educate others around you. If you see your friends driving while looking at their phones, tell them that they shouldn’t put their life on the line: Pulling into a parking lot is a lot easier than going to jail for manslaughter. Also, if you have been affected personally by distracted driving, then share your story! Personal experiences are great ways to educate those around you.

All in all, we should be taking steps to make sure that our roads are not becoming Highways to Hell. Let’s make sure that no more lives are taken just because someone thought it was more convenient to drive while on their phone.

ACDC, in their song Highway to Hell, sing: “Look at me, I’m on the way to the promised land”.

Let’s make sure that this “promised land” has roads that are safe, and free of distracted drivers.