Darkness surrounds, a swift breeze hits my face and blows my hair. The windows in front of me open to every sound around me as we pass by. Beside me, a window dark enough to block me from understanding the world around me. My friends call it freeing, but my hands brace the handle above me as I shut my eyes and attempt to silence the pounding music that vibrates the floor beneath me. Shortly, I am scared.
Fifteen, life is so sweet. My friends are just my age, most unencouraged to even work for their learner's permit and yet have an increasing drive to get on the road. When you’re fifteen, you still walk on the sidewalks, watching your peers speed out of the lot of school, the football games, the food spot, everywhere. Fascinating to a fifteen year old, one can only wait until it is finally your turn. Until your friend turns sixteen. Permitted, licensed, or not, it no longer matters. “We’re sixteen, that’s enough” and “My dad let me drive around the neighborhood, I can drive!” I hear as I, fifteen, without hesitation, “okay” their claims.
At fifteen, I am in a car, and I hear the sound of glass shattering. At fifteen, my mother, driving with her friends, has an unknown object pierces through her once untouched face, shattering her once untouched nose. What did fifteen year old me take from that story? Maybe that was the reason my nose was so crooked. How I wish I had understood what she was telling me.
At sixteen, I am finally a licensed driver. With excitement, I became the designated driver. It is completely different when you are in the back seat and when you are behind the wheel. You are responsible for everyone's safety. Inside and outside the car.
On the news, a girl I knew growing up was struck by a drunk driver. On my phone, a boy tells me he is driving with his friends. The boy is gone. On the news, a girl I go to school with, crashes into an older man's car, killing him. On the road to my school, I pass each day a memorial for a girl who was struck walking by a drunk driver.
At sixteen, I am finally invited to go to a high school party. So I go. Flashing lights and booms and scratches from the blasted speakers all fill my eyes and ears as I see the boy in my Math class stumble into his car. With him, a girl in my English class, mind in and out, enters with him. The experience everybody explained to me, I never got. Maybe out of fear, I had never even considered losing my lifelong sobriety. The content girl I made art with in class everyday, yelling and in slurs to greet me and explain how long it has been. I hope she drives home safely.
Each and every one of my peers has made the reckless decision to enter or drive a car in a trip that exceeds the legal limits of speed or the limits of the lines. They would discuss the new drama of the day or scream the lyrics of a song at the highest volume possible without a care in the world. Unassuming, the world around them moves as well, some on their way to their kids, some on their way to work, and some also on their way to a reckless night. The consequences are unknown but present.
My experience is merely as a bystander, the perpetrator as one who was supposed to care for me. As high schoolers, we can only hope to impress our peers and to us, driving is considered “cool” as long as it is at least ten miles per hour over the speed limit. Such is unrealistic. My peers have families to come home to. My peers have lives to live outside of that unrealistic expectation to exceed the necessary limit set to simply protect us.
The person you harm can be a child, an educator, your doctor, your food handler, your best friend, your family, your partner, a person who has a passion, a love for life, and a right to live safely and abiding. These people can harm you by simply being in a rush or making the conscious decision to endanger you by recklessly driving, sober or not.
The person you harm can be yourself. A bad day, a deadline, a night out, and more are never a reason nor excuse for unsafe driving. The pressure from societal expectations does not need to reach your mind and should never excuse the permanently shattered experience a person and their family will forever hold with them through the decision of reckless driving. My mother will never be the same, a scar driven across her face from the tip of her nose to the edge of her forehead, reminding her of the experience she had as a fifteen year old girl, forty years later. She fears being too close to a car and jumps at sudden breaks. I will never be the same, for the rest of my life, I will find myself offering to be a driver, I refuse to tint my windows out of fear of uncertainty of my surroundings and the unprocessed decisions my peers make each day.
Encourage the life and health of others and yourself.
Drive safe.