Engineering a Safer Driver

Every year, 34,000 people die on American roads, a number of fatalities that exceeds the combined casualties of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. This reality forces us to acknowledge that driving is the most dangerous activity we undertake.

I have spent years learning how to eliminate all failures in my robots, yet I ignored small failures in my own driving. As an aspiring mechanical engineer, studying at the University of Southern California next year, I have spent the last four years viewing the world as a complex system of variables, inputs, and outputs. On my robotics team, we debug chassis designs and optimize code until the system performs flawlessly. However, for a long time, I treated driving, the highest-stakes machine I operate every day, with a dangerous lack of careful consideration. I fell into the trap of believing that because I am a careful person, I am an inherently safe driver, regardless of the distractions I allow in my car.

My distracted driving habits were not the cinematic "texting while swerving" disasters from PSAs, like the ones I made in my high school film class, but rather the small distractions that are arguably more insidious. My most common habit was the management of my car's infotainment system. Whether it was scrolling through a music playlist to find the perfect track for a rainy drive or fiddling with the GPS to find a shortcut, I operated under the assumption that these tasks were harmless. I was physically looking at the road, but my mental processor was completely on the digital interface, not the velocity, spacing, or trajectory of my car like it should be. I was also guilty of mental multitasking, thinking of my robotics team outreach projects like fundraising plans to help a small robotics team in Mexico or brainstorming solutions to the Eco-Arcade. I convinced myself that because my hands were on the wheel, I was fully focused on driving. In reality, I was a passenger in my own vehicle, with my attention on things far outside the roads.

The realization of this danger arrived through the physics I study in Mr. P’s class, during a lesson on the mechanics of car crashes. At 60 miles per hour, a car covers 88 feet per second. Our reaction time isn't nearly that quick, especially when distracted. He told us about his former physics student who got in an accident. I immediately thought about how when I looked down to adjust a song, I was effectively closing my eyes for two to three seconds traveling blind for nearly 300 feet. That is as far as a football field. The moment I visualized that distance, my "invincible" engineer persona shattered, I suddenly remembered the times I missed a speed limit sign or drifted slightly out of my lane. If I wouldn't run my robot without every possible error accounted for, why was I doing the same with a two-ton vehicle?

To end these habits, I have adopted an engineering protocol I call "Pre-drive Readiness." Just as I would prepare a robot with a checklist before a competition match, I now mandate that my driving checklist, located on a sticky note on my dashboard, is completed before I turn on the car.

First, my phone is now placed in the glove box, not in the cup holder or on the passenger seat. By removing the device, I remove the temptation to "quickly check" a notification. Second, all route planning and audio curation are completed while the car is in park. If I decide I want to listen to a different podcast halfway to my destination, I now pull over before touching the screen. Third, I have replaced my habit of thinking through my day with a deliberate practice of scanning. The first week I noticed myself reaching for my phone in the cupholder before realizing it was in the glovebox, but now, I actively look for potential hazards like brake lights ahead, pedestrians near the curb, or erratic drivers, rather than being coerced by my cell phone.

I’ve realized through engineering projects that formal training is vital but it often lacks the personal connection that makes a lasting difference. I used robotics to solve this issue in recycling by creating the Eco-Arcade, a bin that detects recycling and plays a game on the screen when someone recycles. This device now has a patent and creates genuine connections with recycling. 

I tried to do the same to address the issue of negligence in driving, I set up a driving simulator in my basement. I had friends navigate it while receiving realistic distractions. After timing their glances away from the screen and calculating the distance traveled blindly, they realized they had driven an entire football field without looking. It turned an abstract warning into a problem they wanted to fix.

We can reduce these 34,000 deaths if we stop treating driving as a passive activity. To become a safer driver, I have moved from passive operation to active, protocol-driven management. I encourage my peers to do the same by normalizing the habit of putting phones away before the engine starts. Engineering is ultimately about solving problems to protect people; by applying this mindset to our daily commute, we can transform the road from a place of risk into a space of responsible, focused movement.