Distracted driving is something I never really thought much about when I was younger. My mom drove all the time while she was eating food, talking to everyone in the car, singing to the music/changing the channels, reaching for something either in the side door or in the middle section, and even texting or talking on the phone while driving. It was something that I thought was completely normal, and while sometimes I knew that she shouldn’t be texting and driving, she seemed to be good at multitasking, so I always assumed that it would be okay and that there wouldn’t be any consequences.

Luckily my mom has not gotten into a major car accident when her eyes are off the road, but an average of 3,000 people a year aren’t so lucky. Approximately 8-9% of fatal car crashes in the U.S. are related to distracted drivers. As I’ve learned more about safety in a car and while driving, it scares me when my mom pulls out her phone, even if it's just to “do a quick text.” I always try to remind her that it can wait and that she can put it away, or have me do it for her.

However, distracted driving doesn’t just come with texting and driving. As mentioned before, anything a driver does that isn’t driving while they are behind the wheel, is being distracted, and they are driving distracted. It’s proven that we can’t put our focus on two things at once, although people claim they can multitask when a driver's focus isn’t on the road, that means it's on something that they deem more important right then. This is scary because that means any conversation that a driver has is being distracted from driving, even only slightly. But even the smallest bit of distraction can cause a disaster.

Every car that I’ve been in, either with my parents, my friend's parents, my siblings, or my friends, the drivers strike up conversations every time. Even on car rides that its been almost completely silent, the driver has still held a small conversation with the person in the passenger seat, even if it was just a few minutes or a couple of seconds. While it may be second nature for people to talk to their passengers while behind the wheel, it can be dangerous as their attention isn’t fully on the road.

People may think that driving alone could be safer, as there is no one to talk to. While in many cases, especially for young drivers who are much more likely to crash with peers in the car, this may be the case, you are always still at risk of being distracted. Listening to your favorite music, while it may make the drive more enjoyable, may still be very distracting! Same with eating in the car. Not only do you have to put your mind on the thought of the food and try not to spill, but you also have to use your hands to eat the food. Many people also try to put their makeup on while driving, and this is very dangerous. This doesn’t just take your eyes and mind off the road like food, but your eyes too! These people focus more on how they look than on being able to get where they need to go safely.

It may not be completely practical to say that you can’t have any conversations with people in your car, but many of these other actions don’t need to be done while driving. If you need to, pull aside to send a text message if it needs to be sent right then. While we cannot control the actions of others around us, we must take all the steps we can to avoid distractions in our car that could lead to a fatal car crash. And it doesn’t matter how long you look away from the road, or how long you lose your focus on what you are doing, even in one second, a small crash could happen. A small crash isn’t deadly to the people in a car if it's a small fender bender, but if that's a kid that runs across the road, that one second could be life-changing.

Distracted driving isn’t something to take lightly, as many of these fatal crashes in a year can be prevented if the drivers were paying a little more attention to the most important thing that they are doing. Being more focused on the road would potentially save lives if you can prevent a life-threatening crash, just because you are paying attention. And even if you know a crash is inevitable, if you aren’t distracted, you can try to make the impact less, on you and others around you.