Until It Happens to You

You’ll never understand until it happens to you. This is a quote that can be used for a variety of situations, but one that can be most easily applied to car accidents. You never understand just how important it is to be a safe, non-distracted driver, until you aren’t- and something happens. I have personally been in a car accident at the hands of phone usage while driving. Though I wasn’t behind the wheel, I was still in the passenger seat as we flew off of the road, hitting multiple mailboxes and a tree, and totaling my friend’s vehicle. We were lucky to both step out of the car that day, with only a concussion and a bruised body on my end. If we had been going even 15 miles per hour faster than we were, I am not sure what would have happened. This is why it is so important to develop strategies to deter drivers from using their phones while on the road, especially among a population as vulnerable as teenagers. While there are many approaches to solving this issue, I think that working directly with popular social media apps, such as Twitter, Snapchat, and Instagram, to develop a lock or ‘driving mode’ on phones going over a certain mileage per hour, would be the most effective. In addition, if the ‘driving mode’ lock only went away when the vehicle was stopped, that would hopefully encourage young drivers to only access these apps if they are safely pulled over. The reason I believe this would be so effective is due to the fact that many people using phones while driving know it is wrong to do so, and most likely try to ‘multitask’ by keeping their eyes on the road and on their phone at the same time. Since these ‘lock’ screens make it more difficult to access the apps and introduce multiple steps to get into them, users are more likely to give up on trying to bypass them and wait until they are stopped. It is more difficult to tap through multiple screens or type in your password to get into a social media app than it is to simply unlock your phone, tap the app, and begin using. In addition to working directly with apps, driver’s education is crucial in showing youth drivers just how dangerous your car can be. I think that introducing as many testimonials, videos, and data as possible about fatal driving accidents is key in really driving home the idea that distracted driving is dangerous, unacceptable, and not worth the risk. Overall, I hope that if these measures are implemented, other kids will never have to understand the horror of a car accident, because it will never happen to them.