Kayla Paulette


You're a 16-year-old who just
received their license. Your friend texts you to come over while
you're driving, and bam. You rear-ended another car and went through
your windshield. At age 16 you're dead. Your family and friends are
shocked. You are now considered one of 424,000 people who is injured
or killed from becoming distracted while driving.

Two
years ago, my friend was driving home from a party with a few of his
friends and he got in a very dangerous car accident and they all
died. He was 19. I remember feeling so upset that he was dead. I
couldn't comprehend never seeing him again. He became one of the
thousands of people who die every year from vehicular accidents.
As
a community, if we continue to educate our new drivers, hopefully, we
will see a massive decrease in car accidents within the next 10
years. As technology is booming, phone companies, as well as specific
apps, are enabling themselves to their users if they sense that they
are driving. Apple recently made an “Apple driving mode”, in
which the Apple device will automatically be put onto do not disturb.
In addition apps such as “waze” unable you to type while driving
unless you state that you are a passenger.

In
2015 UNL news found that since driving education has started 150,000
drivers have become safe in the car. A study was found that without
taking drivers ed you are 16% more likely to have an accident
and 75% more likely to get pulled over and receive a ticket says
Leslie Reed from University Communications.

Overall
you can’t do anything to improve your driving skills. But you can
do things to improve your safety while driving. Always make sure to
take safety precautions like buckling your seatbelt, being aware of
your surroundings, making sure your breaks, and tires are safe, and
also staying focussed and not using your phone.