It Could Have Been Prevented

In
mid August 2013, eleven-year-old Addy ate breakfast with her grandpa
and grandma. As Addy sat down for grandma’s pancakes, her
grandparents talked excitedly about celebrating their 50th wedding
anniversary with their family later that day. But, not even a mile
away from the restaurant where they were meeting, Addy’s dad got
the call from her cousin saying her grandparents were in a car
accident. By the time she and her family arrived, there were
ambulances and helicopters already at the scene. Her entire family
watched helplessly, and after an hour of the responders treating her
injured grandparents at the scene, her grandpa was flown to a
hospital and her grandma was taken by ambulance to a hospital. The
other driver walked away with minor injuries. Addy and her family sat
helplessly in the waiting room at the hospital until the worst thing
possible came true… Her grandma had passed away. Her family then
had to go through telling her grandpa that his wife, of 50 years, had
just passed away and due to his injuries he wouldn’t be able to
attend the funeral. Like many stories, the driver who walked away
with minor injuries was a distracted driver.

According
to distraction.gov, over 3,000 people were killed and over 420,000
people were injured in distracted related car accidents in 2014
alone. We could easily decrease this number by doing three simple
things: one, put your phone in a place like the glove box or turn it
off altogether, two, call yourself a designated driver if you going
out for a night on the town, three, as a passenger, make sure the
driver keeps their focus solely on the road and nowhere else, and
invest in courses such as drivers ed. Drivers ed helps to teach
people of all driving ages safe and proper ways to drive from place
to place. Courses like this help to teach those prevention tactics
before they hit the road.

I
ask you to put down your phone, call someone to give you a ride, keep
the driver focused, and take drivers ed because Addy’s story is
my story. Someone didn’t listen to these four things and as a
result, my grandma was taken away from me. My grandpa went through
unimaginable pain mentally and physically. My whole family’s life was
changed in an instant. We live in a world where everything has to be
immediate and where people can’t manage to put down their phones
for a ten minute drive. We can make the future a safer place, all we
have to do is wait.