In Two Minutes: A Life Lost

It’s been two minutes. You can taste the dryness in your mouth, your body’s reaction to you entering a vehicle twenty degrees warmer than the cool comfort of your home. It’s been two minutes when you suddenly hear a tiny ‘ding!’ from your cell phone. It’s only been two minutes, and yet, you find yourself taking your eyes off of the road to search for the phone you had put in the cup holder minutes before, only to find it lying precariously on the edge of the passenger seat next to you. “A glance,” you whisper to yourself. “It will only take a glance.” So, taking your eyes off of the clear blue endless sky in front of you, you turn your head and reach for the phone next to you.

It’s been two minutes. And yet, in those two minutes, a decision was made resulting in a bright, lively girl found unconscious, coated in her blood, her skull fractured from colliding with the windshield as her car rammed up a 40-foot tree on the side of the road.

The story told above is, thankfully, fictitious, but for a lot of individuals this story resonates with them because it is their reality. While I was fortunate enough for my friend to come out of her totaled car with just scratches, others have experienced the loss of someone due to driving accidents that could have been entirely preventable. So then, why weren’t they?

When we are young, we have a predisposition to believe that we are invincible – that we have our whole lives ahead of us, no matter the risks we take. However, that is not the case. The reality is that we are the most vulnerable to have these types of accidents because of our lack of knowledge and experience.That is why the best way to prevent distracted driving is to educate ourselves about the risks and the steps to avoid such dangerous habits.

One of the steps to reduce distracted driving is to turn your cell phones off as with no alerts you are more likely to focus on driving. Another step is to notify your friends that you’re behind the wheel. This ensures that you won’t receive notifications from your loved ones and that you won’t be tempted to check your phone. If the phone call is unavoidable, having a hands-free device when you pick up the call ensures that you have both hands on the wheel and are ready to react to any situation. Another step is to pull over. This is especially helpful in preventing angry driving as pulling over gives the driver some time to compose themselves. Finally, do not drive if you have consumed alcohol or drugs or if you have not rested as any one of these will divert your attention from the road. Because at the end of the day, two minutes are all it takes for a life to slip away and a broken body be all that remains.