
Name: Monet Goines
From: Wilmington , North Carolina
Votes: 0
An Eye for an Eye: Solving Impaired Driving
An
Eye for an Eye: Solving Impaired Driving
My
brother didn’t think that he would be losing a part of his right
eye. On his hour-long drive back home from a friend’s house, he
accidentally fell asleep behind the wheel and crashed his car into a
ditch alongside the highway, thus slamming his head into the steering
wheel. Upon waking, he realized his right eye couldn’t refocus its
vision: he would later learn that his cornea was partially torn and
needed operating on to regain even a fraction of its original
strength.
When
we think of car accidents, the image of a drunk driver’s pickup
T-boned into a minivan or blocked-off off highway lanes for a pileup
tend to be the first image to pop into our heads: the thing is, it’s
always someone else. Our moms aren’t being hauled away in
ambulances, or our neighbors aren’t describing the details of a
fender-bender. These people we see tend to remain anonymous in our
eyes, which makes it that much more real when an accident happens to
someone we’re close to. When I found out my brother had had his
accident, I was terrified for him in a sense that I had seen happen
but never felt before myself. It put this feeling into a new
perspective that redefined the dangers of impaired driving.
This
feeling I had upon hearing about my brother’s accident is one I
hope that nobody else ever has to feel. It is in this spirit,
therefore, that I advocate for better education on impaired driving
and the danger it presents. ‘Impaired’ driving tends to be
defined by most as driving under the influence of drugs or alcohol,
but I believe that we need to expand into the education of other
impairments, such as sleep deprivation and distracted driving.
Current stigma that categorizes these issues as being less dangerous
than drunk or high driving do not represent the actual dangers they
present.
One
solution I present would be to bring in victims of accidents
involving other forms of impaired driving to drivers ed
classes. Many classes already take this approach with people affected
by drunk driving accidents, who bring the grim reality of those
consequences to the attention of new drivers. By introducing these
future drivers to the effects of other forms of impaired driving the
same way we currently do with drunk driving, we can instill a greater
regard for these actions and hopefully reduce the number of accidents
that occur in this fashion. It would go even further to find victims
willing to speak out, if possible, who are from the local community.
This would remind drivers that these accidents can happen close to
home, and that it is up to them to prevent them.
Driver
education is imperative to placing safe drivers on the road, and the
dangers of impaired driving must be better addressed. My brother was
fortunate enough to be able to recover from his accident, and I know
that this is not always the case with others: preventing these
accidents from happening in the first place, therefore, is more
valuable than we take it for granted.