Name: Leia Bamasi
From: Winter Garden, Florida
Votes: 0
I
remind my mother about the carelessness of texting and driving as she
reaches for it with the latest ping of her phone. She replies with
some excuse about work, yet the phone returns to its proper place in
her purse while in charge of the vehicle. My story is an example of
how many innocent bystanders (especially young children) can be
horribly affected by the second it takes for a driver to hit send.
Even
though everyone seems to be aware of the consequences, driving while
focusing on something besides the road is the highest cause of
accidents in America. We’ve all seen the terrible and all too real
commercials about driving safe: the teen driver halfway through
sending a text message when a freeze-frame occurs to show the driver
about to hit a little girl biking home from practice, or the adult
pulled over for texting and driving while in a school zone. But
watching it before a YouTube video and experiencing it first hand
change someone on radically different levels.
The
first step is education. People need to be aware of the damage they
can cause. Personally, I learned how a car can turn into a weapon
through Drivers Ed class. The consequences of our actions were
drilled into our heads. When drivers become aware of how their
recklessness, whether it be using your phone for a quick call or
driving after a night at the bar, affects others, it rapidly changes
their behavior. If you think of not only the other car you hit, but
that person’s mother, brother, sister, or anyone else they’re
important to– you realize how wide a net of destruction you cast.
To
become a better driver, thus reducing driver deaths, people need to
know that they can help the problem. By simply putting your phone in
a bag while driving you can strikingly reduce the number of accidents
you’re prone to. It’s legitimately that easy. For most people,
however, this simple change is too much of a difficulty. Through
personal experience I’ve seen how hard it is to get a licensed
driver to listen and put their phone away– its an almost daily
struggle with my parents. Luckily we’ve never been in an accident
due to texting behind the wheel, and it’s getting easier to put the
phone away everyday.
Together
we can help make the road a safer place. People must work together to
reduce distractions while driving and hold each other accountable to
following the rules of the road. This may mean taking some
reeducation drivers ed. courses, or setting your phone to driving
mode to limit the alerts. It’s different for everyone, but the
outcome remains the same. As a driving community we can make a
difference and lower the amount of families impacted by driver’s
deaths through these change of habits.
