Focused
Driving in a Distracted World
By
Emily Mordecai
Our
generations have recently seen a dramatic escalating in things that
we can use to distract ourselves in our day to day lives. From access
to substances like drugs and alcohol to even more accessible
platforms like social media and various technology, the things that
we use to numb and pull our focuses in our daily lives are what can
also lead to pulling our focus in the driver’s seat. A few years
back I witnessed a horrific car accident in which an intoxicated man
drove so recklessly that he killed a mother and her two children. I
hear about people my age at my own school that drive while
intoxicated or while texting or scrolling through Twitter and it
makes me wonder if they know that they have the potential to have the
same outcome as that reckless man did those years back. I wonder if
they fully realize that they are responsible for other people’s
lives while driving, and not just their own.
Growing
up in a time when everything really can happen at the push of a
button can make driving responsibly an afterthought. The twitch of
new drivers to reach for their phones to change a song or send just a
one-word text is one of the biggest temptations that I and every
other driver my age faces. Educating young drivers about the dangers
of those temptations is imperative to ensure to them that a one-word
text can turn into a more-than-one-car collision. Learning true
defensive driving and understanding the responsibility that a driver
has on the road can help lead to less accident-related deaths due to
reckless driving. Every ten years each driving citizen in America
should have to relearn and retain this virtue of responsibility and
safety that preliminary driving courses teach to ensure that he or
she should keep their license. The roads would in this way be much
safer places. In addition, taking measures such as leaving your keys
in an inaccessible place if you know you will be drinking, and
keeping your phone zipped away in a purse of backpack while driving
are both great habits to get into to help dissipate the temptation of
distracted driving. Being a bystander to distracted driving is also
just as bad. If you see a friend pick up their phone while driving,
offer to type out that text or change the song for them! Remind them
of the power that they hold in the driver’s seat and remind
yourself of it every time you get in that seat as well. Having the
ability to get in a vehicle and go anywhere at any time is such a
privilege. Hopefully we as a society can keep reminding each other of
that truth and lessen this epidemic of accident-related deaths in
America.