No Tacos or Texting: A Pledge to Safer Driving!

Most of us wouldn’t even consider attempting potentially dangerous or life-threatening activities such as flying a plane, performing brain surgery, or building a bridge without first completing training and educating ourselves how to safely do so. These tasks are very beneficial and occur every day, but we only trust those who are trained to do them because they could prove deadly when done by the wrong person, especially someone who doesn’t have adequate knowledge or practice. We also expect those performing these activities to dedicate absolute attention and care to the task because of how important they are and the serious nature of potential consequences.

Driving is no different. Each time a driver sits behind the wheel of a three-thousand-pound vehicle, that car becomes a potential weapon that could kill or seriously injure the driver, passengers, pedestrians, or other drivers sharing the road or incur serious damage to property. Why, then, are so many drivers lax about the level of attention required, the importance of driver education, or the seriousness of the act of driving? Thousands of people die each year from car accidents. Many of these victims or the ones causing the crash are young drivers and very often drivers influenced by drugs, alcohol, fatigue, or who are distracted by cell phones, socializing, or trying to multi-task while driving.

Perhaps too many drivers see the act of driving as such a mundane, daily task that doing so is almost a natural reflex, requiring little focus or thought about what one is doing? Our society is so fast-paced and accustomed to immediate connectivity to others that driving from point A to point B may seem like a waste of time that could be made more entertaining or useful by maximizing the experience with a phone call, a bite of lunch along the way, or even completing grooming during the commute. The problem with this attitude is that driving does require absolute attention for every second the vehicle is in motion. Just one second of attention diverted to a text, a conversation in the backseat, or fishing French fries from the bottom of the drive-thru bag could become an irreversible and life-changing moment!

This author has witnessed friends and family members driving in an unsafe manner in ways that surely most have similarly experienced. Who among us can eat a taco without making a mess while seated at a table with utensils and free use of both hands? Now try unwrapping a taco while trying to steer through traffic one-handed, balancing messy food on the steering wheel and being aware enough to properly watch for other cars, traffic lights, and pedestrians. This scenario is played out daily at a drive-thru near you, but most will simply laugh and continue with this practice. I have also seen drivers completely engaged in texting or social media while driving and almost oblivious to their surroundings. Believe it or not, I also once witnessed a driver playing a clarinet while driving on a busy highway, so we cannot even rule out “death by woodwind”!

The only way to force change in the area of distracted driving is to make the problem real and personal for drivers to help them modify their behavior. Most people, teens especially, feel invincible or like tragedies like car accidents happen to “other people.” Many times, kids feel that teachers, law enforcement, and parents exaggerate or use scare tactics to make them comply, so kids don’t necessarily buy into statistics and stories. It may take the death or injury of someone they know or care about to make them take this matter seriously.

More intense training about distracted driving is needed in schools and driver education programs. Teens need opportunities to see and feel for themselves how reaction times, awareness, reflexes, and maneuverability are impacted when one’s attention, visual focus, or hands are occupied with phones and other distractions. I do not think many teens will change until they are made to personally experience how distractions alter their driving abilities.

Teens need to be made to think in terms of how a distracted driving accident could change their lives. What possible consequences could there be for causing damage to property? What long-term effects could occur to one’s driving or criminal record, ability to obtain employment, or be insured? What would life be like if he or she was made disabled from an accident and how might that affect their future goals, family, and quality of life? What would the affect be on their friends or family if they were killed in an accident? How would they feel if they caused someone else to be killed or disabled and how would this event impact the victim’s family. The more real and personal this exercise can be made, the more likely it is to inspire change.

The list of terrible consequences that could result from driving impaired by drugs or alcohol is staggering including loss of driver’s license, inability to obtain insurance coverage, damage to property, injury to self or others, criminal charges, imprisonment, public shame, loss of employment or inability to secure desired employment or other opportunities, civil litigation, financial hardship, and most significantly is the chance of death to self or others and the permanent emotional scars for having done so.

When a teen just wants to party and have a good time, he or she doesn’t want to be burdened with dark thoughts of what could happen, and all logic and reason may fly out the window. This author thinks that schools and driver education programs need to make the outcomes of drunk driving feel more real and personal to teen drivers to help them understand and believe the gravity of the situation. Young drivers also need to grasp the impairment caused by drinking alcohol while they are sober so that they understand that they are truly not fit to operate a vehicle while in that state. Each would be driver should have to participate in hands-on exercises, such as simulations, to demonstrate to them how their reflexes, vision, and perception are impacted by alcohol consumption and talk to real people who have both driven drunk and paid the price or victims to hear about the effect on them.

Driver’s education is essential because driving includes many complicated tasks happening simultaneously. One must be able to operate all functions on the car while keeping eyes on the road at all times, remaining aware of surroundings, and remembering all laws of the road. It is the type of task that requires a significant time investment in practice, studying, and learning to apply this knowledge. Driving is a privilege that can bring great freedoms and convenience, but also potentially serious consequences when not done well. The author acknowledges that the driver’s ed process can be a tedious, but when lives are on the line, learning and practicing until completely competent is an absolute must!

Perhaps driving for beginners needs to be more of a probationary process until around the age of 22? I would propose that a driver can earn a preliminary license through completion of driver education, but not a permanent adult license until their 22^nd birthday, contingent on how many accidents or traffic violations they incur during the probationary period. For each incident, the driver will have to complete more driver training and adhere to any fees or legal consequences for the matter. At the conclusion of the probationary period, drivers who have demonstrated that they take it seriously and have developed a safe driving record receive their permanent license, while unsuccessful drivers either continue with training or are ineligible for a license, depending on the number of incidents and their severity.

I pledge to be the safest driver possible by following a non-distraction and impairment policy for myself and anyone I ride with. I am as dependent on phones as anyone else, but when I am in the driver’s seat, my responsibility is to the safety of myself and everyone around me. My friends and family will have to learn to adapt to gaps in time when they do not hear from me because my focus is on the road. When I am the passenger, I will offer to drive or type the driver’s texts for them if they insist on texting. I will refrain from eating, turning my gaze and full attention to my passengers to socialize, or other multi-tasking that could compete with my ability to drive, and I will encourage everyone I know to do the same. In the end, my contacts may initially find my practices annoying, but I am certain that they would rather have me alive and well than injured or killed in a car crash.