“I Don’t Think Car Crashes Are as Bad as Everyone Says.”

“I
don’t think car crashes are as bad as everyone says.”

Of
course, most people don’t actually say that. However, the underlying
assumption of some teens and adults is just that. While drunk driving
fatalities have thankfully decreased in the US (Department of
Transport), distracted driving and driving while texting have
increased in recent years (National Highway Safety Administration).
In my opinion, this is from an inability among younger generations to
recognize the efficaciousness of situational awareness over
multitasking.

When
I was about 16 years old, a few weeks from getting my driving
license, our community held a mind-opening awareness event. They
rented a full-scale car crash simulator. First, I was strapped into a
sliding chair connected loosely to a metal beam. As the slope of the
metal beam increased, the chair would roll forward to the edge of the
track, which was about 20 ft long. The chair was raised, locked into
a certain angle and released suddenly. My chair rolled unsettlingly
fast towards the edge of the track and rammed suddenly into more
metal, without a shock absorber. I wasn’t injured, but very startled.
I almost had the wind knocked out of me. Much to my surprise, I was
later informed that the simulation only got up to 8 mph.

I
couldn’t imagine hitting anything faster than 8 mph. According to
Willenslaw.com, fatality rates are among 5% at 20 mph, but 30% at 30
mph. It’s almost exponential. Since that experiment I have seen
several car crashes right when they happened. The biggest accident I
experienced was actually a train collision from when I lived in
Brazil. Less than a block from my house at the time, two massive
passenger trains slammed into each other, injuring over 70 people.
News helicopters and several ambulances rushed to the scene, making
quite a fuss so close to our house. It was the first collision that
the entire train line had seen in over 30 years. The reason for such
a disaster was poor communication and distracted engineers. The point
is, a couple seconds can change lives and modern transportation can
be deadly.

If
younger people could understand just how little time they’re saving
by trying to multitask and how great the risks are from lack of
situational awareness, I think some of the crashes I saw would have
gone down differently. I think some personal stories out there
wouldn’t have been so devastating. My hope is that people think
clearly and don’t put their lives at risk for trivial and arbitrary
task management.