Distracted Driving

Distracted Driving

by

Breanna Sviland

Drivers education courses teach us how to drive. They teach us how to operate a vehicle. They tell us we shouldn’t become distracted by outside things. We all learn these rules. We acknowledge them and abide by them to pass a test. We use what we learn in class, in the beginning. In reality, we use this information, but as every generation believes, I am smarter than the previous one. I am younger so I am quicker. How they were taught to drive is outdated.

Distracted driving has become a major problem in my opinion. There are way too many accidents, many resulting in the death, involving distracted drivers. Many of these drivers are teenage drivers.

The most common cause of distracted driving has become cell phones. While many people do not want to admit it, the use of cell phones has become a perceived necessity of everyday life. Most business professionals conduct a large portion of their jobs on their cell phones. Almost every teenager lives their life partially through their cell phone.

Focusing on teenagers, as I am one, the cell phone is almost a connected body part. We are constantly on social media platforms. Apps such as Snapchat, TikTok, Instagram and even Facebook (even though most of us do not use it hardly any more), have made communicating with each other a way of life. We live a large portion of our life sharing our activities and hobbies, our daily activities and all our achievements through social media. We have fun making TikTok videos with our friends. We use Snapchat to communicate with each other. We post pics and videos of our daily activities on Instagram. We live a lot of our lives on social media, and it is just a swipe, click or double tap away.

With the popularity of social media, we want to stay current with what our friends are doing. With life happening so fast, we get notifications constantly that our friends have posted a new video, snap or “IG” post. We want to see what it is immediately so we are “with the crowd” and not “behind the crowd”. If it happened 15 minutes ago, you missed it.

This constant “need” to be in the know also follows us in to the car. While we are driving, we get alerts or notifications that something new is posted. We get a text from a friend. We get a call from a friend asking us if “we saw what Jane Doe posted”. This causes us to become distracted.

Whether we think it is just a quick glance at a pic or a couple seconds to read a text, it draws our focus from the road. Many auto manufacturers have installed featured such as Apple Car Play and Android Auto to try and help cut down on distracted driving. While these features make it where you can know what a text says, reply to a text, receive a phone call or make a phone call, we are still distracted. We get the alerts from social media, and we do not want to miss it. We still want to glance at our phones to see who posted what. Smart watches have brought this technology to our wrists also. We now do not have to look at our phones. While many believe this is better, the screen is smaller so it requires a longer glance. Hundreds of feet pass while we “take a quick glance” at our wrist or phone. These quick glances draw our eyes from the road which leads to us not knowing what is coming up, road curves, car wandering across the lines. These minor actions can cause major incidents. Single car accidents, head on collisions, major accidents involving multiple cars are all caused by a quick glance to keep in the know.

We need to start helping each other realize that these life event updates can wait until we complete our drive to acknowledge. What Suzy does is NOT more important than our focus on the road. Mikes video can wait. The more we can assure ourselves and our friends of this, the safer our roads may become. We need to help educate each other and ensure each other that even though were no longer in driving school, we are still learning.

I have been involved in a very minor accident due to a text. Thankfully, no one was injured and there was no damage. It was a minor tap at a stop sign in a heavy rain. I was extremely lucky. I took my incident and learned from it. I try and remind myself that it could have been way worse. I try and remind my friends, that we can still “be cool”, even if we are slightly behind in the current events of our friends. I hope my friends and myself can help change the way of thinking and this thought process can spread.