Driving in the Modern Era

Alexandra Koval

Driving in the Modern Era

Driving is a big part of many teenagers’ lives. The new modern era has produced changes in a typical teen’s life, including the use of social media and text messaging. With these new technologies, teens have developed increasingly dangerous driving habits. One way to reduce teenagers texting while driving is to educate them about the importance of keeping your full attention on the road at all times. Another way is to try and encourage the use of applications and softwares that are put onto phones to reduce being distracted. Lastly, you can reduce dangerous driving habits by telling teenagers to shut off their phones while driving. These are some of the ways that teenagers can reduce dangerous habits while driving.

Today’s teenagers have been introduced to technology from a very young age. To them, texting and social media is a normal part of everyday life, and for some that may include even when they’re driving. In order to reduce this, teens need to be fully educated on the dangers of texting and driving. Ways to do this is to emphasize during Drivers’ Ed and in schools how truly distracting it can be when you are focused on texting while trying to drive at the same time. Students might even be told stories of distracted driving but will not truly know the full effects of it themselves. In order to stimulate this, teachers might try to give the student multiple tasks to do at the same time and see how the well the student performs, compared to doing one task at a time. By educating students about the true dangers of texting while driving, and even showing them how it feels to be distracted, teenage driving and texting could be greatly reduced.

Since the use of smartphones has become widely accepted in recent years, cell phone developers have put softwares into phones that help reduce phone activity while driving. These include, but are not limited to Bluetooth phone calling, Do Not Disturb while driving, and voice text messages. These are things that are automatically put onto all cell phones. With Bluetooth calling, you can easily call without looking directly down at your phone. By turning on Do Not Disturb before driving, it will silence all incoming calls, text messages, and other notification. Finally, voice text messages are when you can reply to texts by simply speaking. The use of these applications can greatly reduce the distraction of the phone while driving.

Powering down a cell phone is an extremely easy task that can be done in seconds. Before beginning to drive, you can shut down your phone which will practically eliminate the distraction of going on your phone and receiving texts or calls. This is an extremely effective way to get rid of cell phone distractions without having to leave your phone at home. Because it takes a couple minutes for most phones to power on fully, this will make sure that teenagers aren’t even using their phones while at stop lights. Shutting down your phone before driving is an effective way of eliminating the risk of teens looking at their phones while driving.

Although I have never personally been in a car accident, I know people who have, and I know that they would greatly benefit from safer driving habits. There are many ways that student distractions while driving can be greatly reduced, or in some cases, even eliminated. One of these ways is to make sure that teens are educated about the importance of driving with no distractions. Another way to reduce dangerous driving habits is to show teenagers that there are certain apps in their phones that can help them to not be distracted by notifications during driving. Lastly, shutting off your phone before you begin driving is an extremely effective way of making sure you don’t get any distractions while driving. In recent years, teenagers have become more immune to the dangers of driving while distracted. By instigating the above tactics, dangerous driving habits of teenagers can be greatly reduced, and the road will be a safer place for everybody.