Dangers of Texting and Driving and How I Can Help Prevent It

Driving is an important task that gets anyone who drives from point A to point B. However, most teens today are addicted to their cell phones which leads to distracted driving. I wish I could say that I have not texted and driven but that is not the case. It is easy to get distracted when driving but there are ways that I have found to help me not become distracted. One of the ways that helps to not be distracted is putting my phone in airplane mode, that way no notifications come through which makes it so I do not need to pay attention to it. Secondly, putting my phone in the door holder helps because I know my little sister cannot get it to play on which can distract me. Lastly, if I need to use Google Maps, I find the place beforehand and Maps still works if the phone is in airplane mode or not using data. I know that contradicts what I was saying earlier but you can hook it up to the car then put it away and just listen for the instructions through the speaker of a car. They should come through. If you are driving with a friend, put your phone away and let them navigate. I have had some great adventures with my friends and let them tell me where to go while driving. Such as driving to a larger city to visit an aquarium and driving past it three or four times trying to find the turn into the parking lot for it. Or when I get to navigate and lead us the longest way to get somewhere because I wanted to stop at a historic place. Doing that leads to more memories with my friends.

All of those things can help make it so you are not distracted and that is important to keeping everyone safe. My family and I tend to bike places and, on our way, to school or to the store, we have to cross busy roads where traffic can become rough. The main roads in town are all around the university which means that people are out and about. Lately, we have witnessed multiple accidents happen because someone was looking at their phone and not paying attention to their surroundings. This is usually worse during the school year because people are in a rush and not always concentrating on what needs to happen. The drivers have either stopped hard or rear-ended the car in front of them which posed a real risk for people around them and for pedestrians. So, when I do drive, I put my phone away so that way I will not be the cause of a crash just because of the liability it causes. Also, causing a crash because I choose to look at my phone instead does not seem like something people should do and I do hope that they will be smarter about it.

Going back to my first thoughts about driving and my advice, by doing all of these things, I feel like a safer person as a driver knowing that I am not distracted by my phone. It is a large problem that students who drive cannot pay attention to one task at hand for so long. This has also become a challenge in school with students. At my school, if the teachers even see a phone out, they now have to automatically assume it is a distraction and take it away from the student. I understand why but why can this not be the case with driving? I do the steps that I listed above for school as well and it does help me focus. I get my work done in school then allow for time on my phone. If students and drivers could do both of those it would probably lead to less detentions and to less car accidents. Those all would be beneficial to young adults’ lives.

Putting the phone down can be hard for people when driving, but also not being distracted is more important. By putting the phone in airplane mode, away where you cannot reach it, or hooking it up to the car system so you don’t have to look at it works well. It is common to hear about people getting in car crashes but if we take certain steps to make it so everyone is safe, then we all can work towards lowering the risk of deaths and car crashes.