In April of this year, I got into an at fault car accident and totaled my car. Although I may not have been distracted in the stereotypical sense of the word, such as being on my phone, or looking away from the road, I’m sure I still was in a way that affected my decision making. I was driving my step sister home to her mom’s house, we were listening to music and having conversations, nothing we wouldn’t normally do. When in the left turn lane though, I had a yellow blinking arrow, and turned when a car was coming. I believed in the moment that the car was turning right, looking back I think I only came to this conclusion due to the fact there were 4 lanes, which in my head meant the right most lane, must be a right turn only lane. None of these thoughts were in my head at the moment, I just believed with confidence they were turning, but when I did turn, they never slowed down, and hit the front right corner of my car going at least 40 mph.
Overall I was really lucky about the results of this accident. The other driver and passenger were okay, and my sister and I were remarkably okay. With just scrapes and internal bruises, and a scar on my left knee, we were very lucky. After having months to dwell on this accident, I’ve thought a lot about how distracted driving may have affected not just me, but the other driver as well. Clearly I was entirely at fault in my accident, and I make no excuses for it. I did have a dash cam in my accident though, and after watching the video back, the other driver seemed to not hit the brakes at all until right before they collided with me. I think not only was I distracted in some way, but the driver of the other car may have been as well based on their reaction time.
This disaster has been a clear example to me of what catastrophes can occur when people are distracted while on the road. Distracted driving is no matter to take lightly, we were all remarkably lucky with the outcome, and it was still absolutely devastating. Although I see the progress society has tried to make towards educating people on the dangers of distracted driving, it’s clear we’re still not doing enough. I’ve been lucky enough that my parents have always told me about how having people talking to you in the car can even be a distraction, but I never see people talking about this in general. I think the first step to battling this problem is increasing the discussion to not just talking about the most stereotypical examples (like not looking at the road), but also your mind simply being somewhere else.
I think it’s very important that we have mandatory drivers education past just the permit test, because it’s completely online and it makes it really hard to know for sure that people getting their permits know what they’re doing. Then these people just need to know the basics of driving to get their licenses, no where along the way is it made sure that they know the dangers of distracted driving. I personally believe that not only should permit tests include questions/videos about distracted driving, but also that there should be some kind of mandatory education in school about it like there is for CPR now. Driving is a very important part of daily life, and so the responsibility of such an important education, in my opinion, should certaining fall on the education system.
Safety while driving is such an important part of our society as it is now, education around the subject is greatly needed to battle the crisis of deaths we have now. Besides just people’s physical health though, the experience I went through also had a severe effect on my mental health afterwards. I think it’s important to remember how big of an effect car accidents will have on your life, it isn’t worth any less than the utmost possible safety. After my accident I would cry everyday thinking about not only what did happen, but what could’ve happened. My sister is one of the most important people in my life and with the impact being on her side, it was a very real possibility that she could’ve died. We can’t let our negligence be the reason our most treasured people get hurt, or even die. Drive smart, drive responsibly, and drive safe; drive with love.