Distracted Drivers Derive Distracting Devices

Driving is a privilege of many kinds. It is amazing from a technological standpoint that virtually any person can travel hundreds of miles in a day, along with a load of hundreds of pounds if they so please. It is freeing to be able to so quickly leave your tribe and become in greater control of your own life. However, this is accompanied by the morbid realization that in every second you are in motion, pounds of force can be thrust on you in an instant by another vehicle or animal. This may be due to no fault of your own or completely preventable carelessness. If two vehicles are traveling in towards each other at a mere 30 miles an hour, the fatality risk is about 80%, and no song change, text, or game is worth that.

One of the main points of Driver’s Education is to help lower the odds of these preventable crashes, which make up nearly 95% of all serious crashes utilizing fear, logical choices, and alternative choices to convince students to remain in control of their vehicle. Driver’s Ed helps students identify common mistakes that are often made on the road and how these actions affect the lives of them and those around them. This is the “book smarts” side of a new driver’s education in learning how to drive. Here, they learn what they are supposed to do and how to react to many common scenarios. Without this knowledge, students would be driving with their left foot on the break and constantly mixing the array of functions on their vehicle, causing confusion on the road: a very dangerous thing.

However, as drivers age and become more comfortable in their car, these teachings begin to erode and we become more experienced, and sometimes less cautious drivers. This is when technology must take the spotlight to keep us in place when our restraint gives way to arrogance. This has already been implemented in ways such as phones that will not notify a caller when the user is driving. However, this is a minority and up to the driver to install these programs. If there were a limit of say 15 miles per hour through the phone’s tracking system that, once passed, blocks the notification system until safely under the limit that could help reduce distraction as well. Phones may start to utilize machine learning as it tracks where you are often above the 15 miles an hour after you pause at a certain location, where your car is parked at work or at home. Then the phone can better predict when to crack down on the limit. Of course, there needs to be a system to override this notification block for those who are passengers. This can be implemented through requiring a certain number of actions per minute, or a complex action every once in a while.

Luckily for me, I have never been in a car crash, nor known anyone who has been. However, that does not mean I cannot drive safer nor that others cannot drive safer. I think that if people were more subjected to the frightening, morbid reality of cars, then they may exercise more caution and responsibility when driving. Many people are subject to what is called the optimism bias, where they believe that bad things won’t happen to them. There is no logical reasoning behind this; it is more a hope than a reality. I think a constant reminder is necessary of how all the people who have died also believed that it wouldn’t happen to them. That is because car crashes don’t happen to someone else; they happen to another you.