Name: Daniel Billings
From: chester, Virginia
Votes: 0
I
have lived in this world for eighteen years, I have only come close
to death twice, one being behind the wheel. In our drivers ed
study guide provided by the DMV, it is stated that “driving is not
a right, but a privilege”. Driving is dangerous, one of my dear
friends had their own father mentally disabled because of the
distraction of another driver who decided texting was more important
than paying attention to the road. It is important to hear these real
life issues and learn from them so that we can all be safer.
Around the time of the movie, “Avengers: Endgame”, me and my
friends decided to go see the movie, afterwords, we went out to eat.
I will never forget that day because of what happened next. I had to
make a left turn, there was a car coming the opposite direction. I
thought it was a turn only lane that the car was in, sadly, I was
very mistaken. I missed the car by about five inches. My best friend
was in the car and I almost killed us both because of me not paying
enough attention to if it was a turn only lane or if you could also
go straight. On average, thirty four thousand people die due to car
accidents a year in the United States, I almost added two to that
statistic due to ignorance. Thirty four thousand people whose family
doesn’t get to see them again, due to the dangers of distracted
driving.
One
of my friends that I have known for years has had their father gain a
traumatic brain injury due to another driver choosing to text rather
then pay attention to the road. That one moment it took to look down
and text changed a man’s entire life. Driving is dangerous and the
driver should always be aware of everything going on around the car.
Around thirty nine hundred thousand injuries happen because of
texting and driving. In this technical age we need to be aware of the
dangers of driving and extra safe while driving, because it is
indeed, a matter of life and death.
We
need to hear stories like this and see the statistics so that we can
hopefully bring them down. If we all were more aware of the road and
just put our phones down while driving we can make the road safer for
not only us, but other drivers around, and help people come home to
their families. If we don’t, as a nation, take these stories and
statistics as a warning then we might leave home one morning not
knowing we won’t come back or see our families again. It takes one
second to put our phones on silent, and one additional second to look
a bit more carefully at the road to be sure it’s safe to make
something as simple as a left turn. I know I will be taking those two
simple steps to be safer, the question is, how many people have to
have a family member added to the statistic before we all do?
