Eyes on the Road, Heart at Home

We drive down the 50 going 80 miles an hour. My mom is asleep in the passenger seat, my brother sits behind her watching a Netflix show and I’m sitting behind my dad as he speeds his football game on the dashboard. This isn’t safe, I know that but what can I say? So I stay silent and vow to myself I will be safe on the road, I will be smart and I will get home to my family each night. I’ve kept that promise to myself since freshman year.

Learning to drive was probably one of the most frustrating things I’ve ever done. I’ve always thought I was a fast learner but with driving it seemed I was the only one not getting it. My friends seemed miles ahead with licenses and cars and I was failing. Behind the wheel, I had to be aware of everything that was going on around me. I had to check my blindspots but it had to be a glance because I needed to pay attention to the road in front of me, each sign meant something different and I had to know what it meant and I had to watch the cars around me as they are unpredictable and none of them were watching out for my safety.

But one day it clicked, I checked every mirror. I slowed down just enough that the momentum didn’t slam my body forward and my mom stopped crouching in on herself screaming every time I got behind the wheel. Not long after my mom took me to the DMV and I walked out with a license. It was so freeing, for the first time I could go anywhere I wanted without having to wait for my parents, the best part was definitely driving myself to school. I love driving with loud music, windows down, and disconnected from my phone.

But as I got more comfortable and looked at more drivers it seemed I was one of the few people who could survive without their phone on the road. At every red light even at green people would go on their phones taking their eyes off the road. It seems every time I drive someone inevitably swerves into my lane or drives much too close to me, and each time I pass them their phones are in their hands.

My phone is important to me, but it is not worth my life. So if I pick the wrong playlist then I’m stuck with it until I pull over or get to my destination, my texts can wait, and if I’m having trouble with my directions then I need to pull over and figure it out. Each person is driving a thousand-pound machine going at speeds that could kill someone immediately. I know by picking up my phone I could get someone killed, so whenever I’m behind the wheel my phone is away and my eyes are on the road. But because of someone’s negligence, they could’ve killed my older brother.

I remember the day my mom came into my room, my brother had been in a crash we needed to go. We ran to the car racing to see what exactly happened ambulances, police cars and fire trucks surrounded the crash. There his car was wrapped around a pole, the front was crushed and the airbags hung out of the window. My heart sank, my mom looked at me before running toward the caution tape surrounding the scene. A cop saw her advancements and tried to stop her but I can still hear her voice crying out, “That’s my son!”

That day was one of the luckiest of our lives as he walked out of that crash with only a mild concussion. A text could’ve cost my brother his life that day. The other driver chose to be negligent, they chose to pick up their phone behind the wheel and if they were going a little faster that day my mom might’ve had to pick up her phone to call a funeral home.

Driving is a privilege, it is dangerous and scary and people die from it. I may not be able to control other people’s actions but I can choose to turn my phone on do not disturb when I drive, I can tell my dad to get off his phone and I can use my voice to ask any driver to put their phone down. Human life is so fragile, a second of screen time isn’t worth the loss of a lifetime.