Liar

Liar

December 8th, 2012 began and started to end just like I had expected. I woke up, spent the day hanging out at the house and with friends, then towards the afternoon I began getting dressed in my J.R.O.T.C. uniform to march in the Christmas parade that my hometown was hosting. The parade went on without a hitch and my friends and I got pizza afterwards. The nighttime is when things took a turn for the bad.

The night was going great and I had turned in after watching a few episodes of The Walking Dead. At around 3 in the morning, I got a call from my ex-boyfriend. I was instantly annoyed because I figured this was another call of him wanting to talk things out but I answered anyways.

I grumbled something along the lines of “Why are you calling me so early in the morning?” but I immediately straightened up and turned serious when he said the sentence that changed everything.

“Jacob got in to a car accident.”

Without hesitation, I told him he was joking or lying and that there was no way. He spent a few minutes assuring me he wasn’t lying and then I finally asked what happened.

Jacob was driving him and his sister, Tiffany, home after attending a Christmas party when they were hit head on by a drunk driver. The driver veered over into Jacob’s lane of traffic and before Jacob could do anything, they collided. Both Jacob and his sister died on impact and the drunk driver walked away with minimal injuries.

The next few months were nothing but easy. People who had never spoken before, became friends, bonding only over the death of a fellow friend. The group of friends that formed from the travesty did everything they could to speak out against drunk driving. There were protests at the scene of the accident, by the memorial’s of Jacob and Tiffany, and to this day, every single one of us speaks out against drunk driving every chance we get.

Due to this incident, it has made me more aware than ever before about driving safely, not limiting to driving under the influence. Driving safely includes not texting and driving, not drinking under the influence of drugs or alcohol, and paying attention to everything going on around you on the road. If people would make the choice to put their electronics away, put their keys away when they’ve had something to drink, and not pay attention to anything but their driving and the driving of the people around them, there would be so many fewer deaths caused by automobile accidents.

I myself, have taken steps to make sure I’m driving safely on the road. If I take even one drink of something alcoholic, I let everyone know that I can’t drive. When I’m in the car and my phone goes off with a text message, I use my Bluetooth to either text back via voice or I tell my car to call them so that I can talk to them instead.

There are ways to improve the safety of driving on roads but unfortunately, the weight is on the driver’s shoulders. It’s their choice and responsibility to choose to not put their life and other’s lives in danger.