Technological Hazards

Driving is a dangerous activity. When you step into a car you take certain dangers in doing so. A sign of that danger is in just how many people die in car accidents every year. Driving deaths are one of the highest causes of fatalities in the United States. People driving are far too often distracted and inattentive resulting in accidents and serious injuries. Many drivers are negligent in their attention to where they are driving simply because they brush off the small things that contribute to accidents. Far too many people will make a phone call or send a text while driving simply because they feel that such a small action could not possibly cause an accident. Most people will normally check their phones for a few moments dozens of times during a day and think nothing of it. But, they do not realize that looking away from the road for long enough to read and send a message is seconds that could easily cause a terrible catastrophe on the road. Most people are warned of the dangers of texting and driving in school, but brush off the danger with the easy confidence of teenagers. An easy illustration of the danger could be made however; either on a closed section of road or in a driving simulator a driver could send a text and see for themselves how far the car traveled to get an accurate idea of just how much danger they are exposing themselves and the surrounding drivers to every time they send a text or phone call while driving.

Stopping drivers from calling or texting while in a car is difficult partly because the other passengers in the car can make calls or texts without much danger. This makes many technical solutions impossible, including making all cars with a device that puts phones into a state somewhat like ‘airplane mode’ and keeps them from making calls or texts. Some cars are currently equipped with systems that can link to phones and allow drivers to make calls using the car’s speaker system, a vast improvement that allows calls to be made as if the other person were in the car. This system allows calls to be made safely, but texts are still very dangerous and short of disabling texts altogether, I cannot think of an effective way to keep drivers from texting and still allow the passengers to interact with the outside world. Even if cars were able to disable texts from certain phones the technology to recognize which seat the phone is serving would have to be so refined as to make it far too expensive to place in most cars. A less technological way to keep drivers from texting would be to make driving and using a phone an offense worthy of a police ticket. That solution comes with its own problems, as an officer would be relatively unable to determine whether the driver is simply using a phone for navigation. The number of officers on the road would have to be increased in order to reduce phone usage. Ultimately, there does not currently exist a feasible way, other than simply educating drivers, to reduce the amount of texting and driving present on the road.

I, myself, and my family, have not been a part of an accident stemming from a phone call or text message. However, we have witnessed drivers acting erratically numerous times, and have been forced to take extreme caution when driving near drivers who were obviously texting. Drivers who are responsible themselves are at almost as much risk due to phone use in a car as the drivers engaging in the dangerous actions. All drivers must be conscious of the dangers of other distracted drivers and they must be sure to not be negligent in their duties and allow themselves to make the same dangerous mistakes that cause the problems responsible for many accidents and dangerous incidents.

There are many dangers on the roads, one of the most prevalent being the dangers of inattentive drivers. However, the majority of the danger is not caused maliciously, but through ignorance as to just how dangerous their actions are. The majority of drivers would likely be very receptive to change if they were only aware of just how dangerous their actions are. Ultimately, ignorance is one of the most dangerous attitudes on the road, and is a problem that cannot easily be fixed without a shift in the mentality of most drivers, especially young drivers.