Wake-Up Calls

Wake-Up
Calls

You
feel the buzzing in your pocket and pull out your cell phone to
respond to the text. While looking down, you run into a few people.
After a few quick apologies, you continue on your way. You are
talking on your phone in the hallway, you bump into something and
start saying “Sorry” but it happens to be a trash can. Something
catches your eye on a shelf at the grocery store and you run into
someone. All you have to give is a few more quick apologies.
Sometimes in life, “sorry” acts as a magic word and can mend
everything, and then there other times, “sorry” undoes nothing.
Will “sorry” help when you crash your parents’ car because you
needed to respond to a text message? What about when you kill
someone’s child because you had a conversation going on the phone
and ran a stop sign? Will you say “sorry” to that kid’s parents
and expect things to get better? And if you had an accident because
of the distraction of talking to your friend in the passenger seat,
what would you say to her if you got to see her again? “Sorry you
had to go to my funeral”? “I apologize for making you live with
that horrible memory for the rest of your life”? “Sorry” cannot
begin to fix some things and preventing those things from happening
by acting responsibly is the best you can do. People should not drive
when talking to a passenger, using a cell phone or when they have
distractions of any kind.

Talking
to a passenger can immensely distract drivers. Keeping an eye on the
speedometer, the road, other cars, upcoming signs and traffic lights
in conjunction with holding a conversation with a passenger is quite
a challenge. David Strayer, a psychology professor at the University
of Utah estimates that only 2% of people can safely multitask while
driving. According to his estimation, a driver has a one in fifty
chance of having the skills necessary to multitask while continuing
to drive safely. Quite a risk to take. To assume that one has those
skills is a major hazard. Strayer’s studies suggest, however, that
a driver having a passenger can actually cause less harm than talking
on a cell phone.

Talking
on the phone, even a hands-free set, can dangerously distract a
person. When one has a passenger in the car, the passenger can at
least notice anything up ahead that will require the driver’s
attention. On the other hand, a person on the phone cannot see what
the driver sees, and the driver may feel compelled to continue the
conversation even if he or she knows a right hand turn at a stoplight
is coming up which will require his or her awareness of the behaviors
of oncoming traffic. Strayer’s studies showed that, when talking on
a hands-free set, half of the drivers in the test failed to pull over
at the designated area. With so many people using cell phones while
driving, the thought of fifty percent of those drivers not paying
attention to their driving should be a frightening one. Drastically
worse consequences can occur than simply missing an intended turn,
though.

From
my own experience, I’ve come to know the apprehensive feeling when
my friend glances down at his phone for a few seconds as we speed
down the road. Sometimes I say nothing. I am afraid to seem “lame”
or to put myself in that slightly embarrassing situation. I think to
myself that only a few seconds will not kill us. In reality, this is
completely untrue. On average, replying to a text message takes five
seconds, and, if traveling fifty-five miles per hour, the car can
travel over three hundred yards in that time (Edgar Snyder and
Associates par. 8). Even the “quick glance” at the phone can
allow the car to cover enough ground to collide with another vehicle
that previously was out of sight. The other side of the danger is
that a person could easily hit a pedestrian, biker, or animal and
cause unthinkable damage to them. The most common cause of distracted
driving, from my experience, is the changing of music. When I drive
around with my friends, we utilize the time to show one another new
music. The problem begins with the searching for the music. The music
applications on cell phones do not have the easiest layout to find
the desired song. This causes the driver to stare at their phone for
an extended amount of time. This time, as stated before, can cause
death and destruction. While peering at their phone, the person is
quite literally driving blind.

A
simple distraction is all it takes. Drinking coffee or changing the
radio station may only take a second, but at that second, someone
might unexpectedly run a stop sign and that distracted second will
deduct from the driver’s reaction time. Focusing on driving with
full attention is necessitated by the need to continue safe and legal
driving and to keep an eye out for other drivers that might practice
unsafe driving. According to a AAA press release, one third of all
South Carolina crashes in 2006 and 2007 resulting in fatalities,
property damage and injuries had distracted driving as a contributing
factor. Furthermore, in a 2008, for the same time period in South
Carolina, a Virginia Tech Transportation Institute study determined
that eight out of ten crashes and 65% of near-crashes occurred when
the use of a cell phone distracted a driver. Factoring in other
possible distractions would make the numbers in the Virginia Tech
Transportation Institute’s results even higher. Often, with the
rise of an action’s popularity, the social acceptance of it also
rises. However, even if something has a society’s acceptance, the
action in itself may not be the right thing to do. Many people do
drive with distractions, but the higher number of distracted drivers
only increases the danger. And while, unfortunately, people have
begun to accept such behaviors as the status quo, distracted driving
increases the possibility of accidents and fatalities, and murder has
not yet become socially acceptable. Difficulties arise with the
enforcement of laws against such common and widespread behaviors and
while maybe that fact will one day change, for now, practicing
careful driving and the use of good sense on the road can start us on
the road to improvement.

Drivers
should use caution and give their full attention to the road. They
should reduce or avoid the influence of talkative passengers, cell
phone use and other distractions which interrupt careful driving.
Together, through such vigilant actions, we can mitigate accidents
and the social acceptability of harmful driving practices. The next
time you travel on the road as a driver, please give your full
attention to driving and the next time you travel as a passenger, I
hope you will allow your driver the safety of having an environment
that will lend itself to careful driving practices.