Name: Meilyn Ward
From: Northbrook, Illinois
Votes: 0
I’ve been in a car
accident, though it thankfully wasn’t serious. In the slow movement
of rush hour, I had been checking my blind spot to merge left, and
when the car in front of me stopped suddenly, I hit it. Despite its
location on a state highway, no cars had been damaged, and no one
even got a ticket.
Now, imagine if it
hadn’t been rush hour. Imagine I was speeding already, turning my
music up to drown the sound of wind whipping through the open window.
Imagine if I had been checking my texts instead of my blindspot, and
seen a hilarious joke my friend had sent. I would laugh, loosening
my grip on the steering wheel and accidentally pushing the
accelerator.
Imagine the same
accident, but with only a couple tiny distractions. They add up, and
so do the medical bills.
Distracted driving
is an increasingly recognized issue, especially with the ease of
online communication in the modern era. According to Zebra
Insurance, cell phone usage led to about 1.5 million car crashes in
the US, just in 2017. Checking notifications becomes second nature,
to the point where we believe we can glance down and back up in an
infinitesimal moment. But, even when funny texts and Instagram posts
aren’t involved, all it takes is a moment for everything to go
wrong.
The best way to
learn responsibility when driving is through experience. Driving
education, especially in-vehicle practice, reduces casualties by
giving students a base set of skills and a realization of why
distracted driving can kill. With a death grip on the steering wheel
as I navigated through the herculean tasks of unprotected left turns
and parallel parking, I couldn’t fathom how anyone could have time
to glance at their phone, much less pick it up. Quality in-vehicle
practice stresses the gravitas of driving, training a student to
never lose focus. However, drivers ed teachers aren’t the only
ones responsible for instilling safe driving methods. The rest is on
us.
Even though
smartphones have implemented anti-distracted driving programs that
prevent access to a phone, it is all too easy to tap the bottom of
the screen, where the “I’m Not Driving” button is. Obviously,
we need a more rigorous method of proving one isn’t driving, but
technology isn’t the only distraction. For example, a friend in
the passenger seat joking around or poking you. Illinois already has
limits on how many unrelated minors can be driven by a young driver,
but even one distracting friend could lead to an accident. If an
adult is required to be in the car as well, the chances of
irresponsible behavior would be further reduced.
But drivers—not
lawmakers, teachers, or tech companies—need to carry the heaviest
share of responsibility for their own safety. If your phone goes
off, you check it, and you crash, the fault lies with you. You chose
to check your phone. And at the end of the day, it’s not the phone
company that dies.
