Name: Nicholas Bennington
From: Hillsboro, Ohio
Votes: 0
I know car
crashes kill people. My mom has reminded me of this fact. Her
sister, my aunt, died in a car crash when she was 20. To this day,
no one knows what happened. Was she going too fast for the curve?
Was she distracted by the radio or taking a drink of Pepsi? Did she
sneeze or a bee fly in the window? No one knows.
I like math, so
what I recall most from drivers ed relates to math. I
remember the classes reviewed the laws for operating a car but also
the dangers. I know that cars travel 80 feet per second at 55 mph.
Depending on a person’s reaction time, a car travels 121 feet
before the brake is touched. Being that a lane of a road is 10-12
feet wide, a car at 55 mph travels left of center or off the road in
less than ¼ of a second. That’s quicker than most people’s
response time. So, by the time they realize what is happening, they
are left of center or off the road. Unfortunately, I experienced
this 4 months after I got my driver’s license. I hit ice coming
down a hill on a rural road. Before I knew it, my truck was sliding,
I was off the road, over the ditch, and through a wooden fence. It
happened so fast, I didn’t know what happened until my truck
stopped. I wasn’t distracted and, fortunately, wasn’t injured.
But this proves how fast you can be left of center or off the road
before you can react. Is this similar to what happened to my aunt?
Did she have time to realize what was happening? No one knows.
No one should
die in a car crash, especially younger people. Undoubtedly, lives
can be saved by not being distracted while driving and decreasing
speed. If you are competent enough to pass the written test to
drive, then you are competent enough to put your phone on silent,
adjust your radio when you are stopped, ignore people in your car,
and follow the speed limits. There are people that believe
technological advances can be used to shut off phones or restrict
radio controls when a car is moving, or enable monitoring devices so
parents can see when radios are adjusted or the speed of their kids
when driving. All this can help for sure. But the parents must
follow up with consequences when they are aware of the distractions
or speeding. Could this technology had helped my aunt be a better
driver? No one knows.
Everyone can
improve their driving. You must monitor what you are doing while
driving. You must purposefully pay attention every second you are
driving. If you do not, in less than a second you can crash. Then
you’ll be saying “I don’t know what happened”. And, God
forbid, if you die in the crash, your family will be saying no one
knows what happened for sure.
