Car accidents and the deaths that result from them are something that we as a society will always have to be conscious of. No matter how many laws and regulations we put in place to make the road a safer place, there will always be some accidents, but there are steps that can be taken to decrease this danger. Many of our government officials are concerned about things like drunk driving and speeding (I’m sure we’ve all seen the influx of speed cameras, especially in major cities), and while these are a major cause of motor-vehicle accidents, there is another cause that has become so commonplace in our world that many people don’t even see it as an issue. Distracted driving results in upwards of 3,000 deaths every year, and while this may not be the biggest cause of accidents, it is the most easily avoidable.

Living in a big city like Chicago, I see and hear about distracted driving everyday. Texting and driving should always be a concern, people think they are skilled enough to type away on their phone and still drive safely. They are not. My dad’s coworker rides a scooter to work and always talks about how he’ll see people watching movies and facetiming while operating their vehicle. We as a society and a government should be trying to regulate all actions that could lead to danger on the roads, so why have dangers like intoxication been so regulated but people aren’t even aware of the consequences that may come from driving with a screen right in front of them.

Now I don’t want to seem holier than all get out, I can’t say that I have never talked on the phone while driving or been in the passenger seat with someone being equally irresponsible. My boyfriend, Eliezer, will sometimes switch his music, usually to something I like more than his music or text his mom while we’re in the car. My own brother, Theodore, has displayed thoughtless driving behaviors, stopping at red lights to text his girlfriend multiple times in one drive. Does he really need to switch songs? Does he really need to text his girlfriend who he'll see in ten minutes? No, but nobody is perfect. But that doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t try to improve our habits.

As I said before, distracted driving is probably the easiest cause of accidents to solve. So easy, they shouldn’t even be happening. It comes down to common sense. Speaking as someone who is part of the technology generation, I see everyday teenagers and young adults who text while driving because they are overly concerned about what the other person will think if they don’t respond back right away. The solution to not only alert the person on the other side of the phone and to protect drivers is a simple click of a button. Most phones have a driving mode which turns on an auto-reply, so if you receive a message while in your car, your phone will immediately text back saying something along the lines of “I’m driving”. This way the driver doesn’t have to worry about responding right away and can focus on the task at hand.

Another development in our world which I believe has contributed to the amount of phones being used while driving are the phone holders that clip onto one’s vents and hold their phone. The idea behind it isn’t the issue, it’s that people now use this holder to excessively use their personal devices while they drive, be it talking to a friend on facetime, watching a movie, or even using the camera as a mirror to do their makeup. Growing up, I carpooled with many of my friends' parents who had these phone holders and would constantly be tapping away on their phone because I was right in front of them. I believe if we take away the temptation to be on the phone by storing it somewhere, like the middle section between the driver and passenger’s seat, the amount of accidents caused by distracted driving will decrease. Sometimes all it takes is putting away the screen. Out of sight, out of mind.

Many of our young drivers, myself included, learned how to drive and the dos and don’ts of the road through the state driver’s education courses. These courses do usually acknowledge the danger of intoxicated and reckless driving (i.e. don’t speed kids), but I think that putting a higher emphasis on the problems caused by having one’s phone behind the wheel is extremely important, especially considering how technology addicted this generation is. Creating a habit from the very start will hopefully keep this habit through the rest or their adult lives. All it would take is adding another short lesson to the class description.

While speeding and drunk driving are still the biggest culprits in roadway deaths, every driver has the ability to help the distracted driving issue by simply putting the phone away. This small change in behavior could have big results, easily saving thousands of lives.