No One Knows

I know car crashes kill people. My mom has reminded me of this fact. Her sister, my aunt, died in a car crash when she was 20. To this day, no one knows what happened. Was she going too fast for the curve? Was she distracted by the radio or taking a drink of Pepsi? Did she sneeze or a bee fly in the window? No one knows.

I like math, so what I recall most from drivers ed relates to math. I remember the classes reviewed the laws for operating a car but also the dangers. I know that cars travel 80 feet per second at 55 mph. Depending on a person’s reaction time, a car travels 121 feet before the brake is touched. Being that a lane of a road is 10-12 feet wide, a car at 55 mph travels left of center or off the road in less than ¼ of a second. That’s quicker than most people’s response time. So, by the time they realize what is happening, they are left of center or off the road. Unfortunately, I experienced this 4 months after I got my driver’s license. I hit ice coming down a hill on a rural road. Before I knew it, my truck was sliding, I was off the road, over the ditch, and through a wooden fence. It happened so fast, I didn’t know what happened until my truck stopped. I wasn’t distracted and, fortunately, wasn’t injured. But this proves how fast you can be left of center or off the road before you can react. Is this similar to what happened to my aunt? Did she have time to realize what was happening? No one knows.

No one should die in a car crash, especially younger people. Undoubtedly, lives can be saved by not being distracted while driving and decreasing speed. If you are competent enough to pass the written test to drive, then you are competent enough to put your phone on silent, adjust your radio when you are stopped, ignore people in your car, and follow the speed limits. There are people that believe technological advances can be used to shut off phones or restrict radio controls when a car is moving, or enable monitoring devices so parents can see when radios are adjusted or the speed of their kids when driving. All this can help for sure. But the parents must follow up with consequences when they are aware of the distractions or speeding. Could this technology had helped my aunt be a better driver? No one knows.

Everyone can improve their driving. You must monitor what you are doing while driving. You must purposefully pay attention every second you are driving. If you do not, in less than a second you can crash. Then you’ll be saying “I don’t know what happened”. And, God forbid, if you die in the crash, your family will be saying no one knows what happened for sure.