Dangers of Driving

I have been in the car for a lot of my life, as have most Americans. It’s the way many of us get to and from places; work, home, restaurants and grocery stores. We go for fun or entertainment, obligation and responsibilities, for freedom and life. The car is a place many of us meet our life in and unfortunately, many of us meet death in them as well.

My mother, when teaching each of my siblings to drive, would tell them all the same thing; “The car is a weapon. It can kill. It’s like a gun.”

This is personally not a lesson I would preach to any new driver, as it leaves an awful taste in your mouth and makes you sick. Everytime you go somewhere, you feel as though you are a potential murderer. It doesn’t help heightened anxiety. This being said, I unfortunately have many a story of how the carelessness of the driver nearly lead to multiple deaths but thankfully never did. There is a happy ending to each story- no one died. No one got hurt. No one was a weapon.

When my older sister started learning to drive, she was reckless. She’d swerve and turn like it didn’t matter, like she had daddy’s money, when she did not. She would not pay attention to the phone, regarding her phone as more important than the passenger in her seats. I remember her yelling about something when suddenly we slammed so hard and far forward, we nearly collided into a car pulling into a circus. The seatbelt slammed into my chest and I jutted forward in surprise. It was not fun. It was horrifying. She made sure I was okay, but laughed it off like it was no big deal- when it could have cost her sister her life. When I brought this concern up later, after she drove past them, she shrugged, not really concerned.

This is not appropriate.

I remember my younger sister would drive around in a smart car my mom let her borrow for emergencies- it was so small only two people fit in as it’s frames held a more cozy feeling for the driver and passenger inside. She would take up less space, less gas and people always noticed her car, remarking how cute it really was. That is, until it was unnoticed by a man in a truck on the road. As the truck slammed into her, the seatbelt cut into her neck and body, leaving a mark that is still there today. The airbag would go off in her face as she knew she was in the right lane and he wasn’t paying attention- the cozy car now claustrophobic instead. Because that man was irresponsible, my sister no longer had a car for emergencies but a phone number for help.

911.

My final story would be of my mother. Graduation from highschool was close at hand for me, and my grandmother had graciously bought me and my three siblings and my mother tickets to a water park. We were so excited, we all climbed into the car and were off on an adventure. Two hours on the road wouldn’t be bad, right?

We almost got into an accident six times. Two times were almost head on collisions.

In an instant, my mothers reckless and distracted driving would have turned my father into a widower with no children left.

Cars are not weapons, despite all the near death experiences I’ve had with them. Cars are tools and nothing more- used as the driver delegates and decides. If a text is more important than a passenger, the car has no choice. A truck has no eyes, so it cannot sense the tiny car before it rams into it, or even after. A car holding a family is merely a device to be used as transport and nothing more.

When reckless driving takes the wheel, there is no one else to blame but the one driver that was reckless in their actions most of the time. It is our choice as people to put down the phones and pay attention to the roads. The roads are not going anywhere, we are. It is our job as drivers to look ahead and think ahead for the lives of those around us because if we don’t, it’s not just the people we know who are in danger but those we don’t.

Life and death sits in the palms of our very hands and we must choose to turn left or right, to use a car as intended and correctly.