Protecting Others Over Distractions

Adele Daniels

I love traveling which I am able to do by driving in my periwinkle car named Perry. I love the independence that comes with owning a car and being able to go almost anywhere I want to go. It’s so fun going to visit friends and family that live far away. To visit them requires long drives, which I often do by myself, that present many opportunities for distracted driving. Since I want to be a safer driver, I am going to enact changes to avoid it in the future.

My most common form of distracted driving is turning my head to look out one of the side windows. That probably sounds like a funny way to be distracted by driving, but it’s true. I love going to new places and driving through cute towns I’ve never been to before, so I start looking out the window to see what’s there. I’ve almost hit cars in front of me, because I wasn’t paying attention when they were slowing down. Those couple of experiences have scared me so much that I’ve decided that if I’m visiting a new place I will stop and walk around the area instead of turning my head while driving. Another reason that I look out the side windows is the scenery. I love looking at trees and mountains. When I’m driving I spend too much time looking at nature and not at the road. If I’m driving a long distance I should stop at a rest area and appreciate the scenery and eat some food instead of trying to look at nature and drive.

Another form of distracted driving I struggle with is eating and drinking. I love drinking tea so often I have tea with me. I’m so impatient that I burn my mouth which has me thinking about the pain I’m in instead of watching the road. To avoid this I can just wait until my tea is cool enough to drink before trying to sip it in the car. Even when I’m drinking water in a car, if the cup or water bottle’s lid has a wide opening, I will without fail spill the water all over myself. To solve this problem I need to only drink water from bottles with small openings or straws so that I won’t spill water everywhere. I also tend to eat and drive while I’m on long road trips. To fix this I can just go to a rest area or get off at any exit with a town and eat there.

My phone is also a constant reminder of ways I could be entertained. Thankfully, I have Do Not Disturb on while I drive so that I do not text and drive. A couple years ago I completely deleted all social media apps from my phone because they were so discouraging and time wasting that I realized it was better not to have them at all. Where I am distracted by my phone is calling people. I love talking with my friends so I often call a friend to liven up the drive. The extremely dangerous part about this is the process of calling them. Since I’ve been studying German for five years I’ve had my phone in German, so my Siri makes me say “Anrufen (fill in the blanks name)” and then it calls them. The problem is that sometimes I don’t pronounce my friends names with a German accent so it calls the wrong person or it says it can’t find who I want to call. When it does that then I look at my phone to manually find their contact and press call next to their name. This makes my eyes go completely away from the road and solely onto the screen. To fix this I should either stop calling friends while driving or call them before I start driving. This way I’m not staring at my phone trying to call them.

My parents have a car with a bunch of buttons and a built-in screen for AC/heat, radio and bluetooth. If I try to change the heat or AC or the radio station my eyes are off the road and I’m not paying attention to what is in front of me. I’ve almost rear ended a couple people because I was messing with radio stations. To eliminate this issue I should make sure that the stations I want to listen to are present into the system so that all I’d have to do is press a button on the back of the wheel to change the station. Using the button on the wheel allows me to stay focused on driving.

In conclusion, there are a few key areas where I am distracted while driving. Most basically I am distracted by things in and outside of the car. I spend too much time looking out the window, at the control console, and at my phone instead of at the road where my gaze should be focused. To resolve these issues I need to make sure everything is set up and ready to go before I start driving. Secondly, I need to make more stops to eat and enjoy the view while I’m not driving. Or I should bring a friend along on my long road trips, so that they can drive and I can eat or look out the window in peace. Ultimately, I pledge to stop distracted driving because I want to protect myself and other people. I don’t want to be the cause of any car accidents and the reason that someone gets seriously hurt or dies. I resolve to keep myself and others safe while I drive by eliminating distracted driving in my own life.