Safe Driving Awareness Essay

When I was 10, my grandmother had a seizure behind the wheel. She hit a light post and died as the truck tumbled and hit a tree. Her ex-husband, my grandfather, had a heart attack the same day after hearing the news. He was on the operating table for 10 minutes. After the event, he lived for another three years with that tree stump on his porch. My grandmother was epileptic and had had seizures before. That also wasn’t the first time she had been in an accident either, but that was the last time. When the accident got out, a very bold-faced woman got online and started bashing my grandmother, throwing all types of accusations to my family that were just plain lies. Every driver has a story and no two stories are the same. Driver’s Ed doesn’t just tell you how to operate the vehicle you’re in, it shows you a completely different perspective of the people around you, who do not have your safety in mind. 

 The biggest cause of accidents are distracted drivers. Every day on the highway, the words “get off your phone!” come out of my mouth at least 20 times in the morning and in the evening, especially here in Texas, where traffic is in competition with New York for the worst traffic of all time for no reason. I’ve been in two separate accidents, about 2 years apart from each other. Once when I was in the 3rd grade and the other was when I was in the 5th grade. In the third grade, my younger brother was a three year old toddler. I was leaving a birthday party with my mom. The car in front of us came zooming out of the apartment parking lot and rammed straight into us. I came out with a mild concussion but my brother was perfectly fine and fast asleep. The second time, I was on my way to my cousin’s birthday party when the car in front of us braked abruptly at the traffic light. My mom thought they were moving, and they stopped, making my mom rear end them. This time, my brother and I were fine, just a bit shaken up. I’ve also gotten to see my mouth move and the words “get off your phone” come out of my mouth to my mom, which is something I hate saying to her. My mom definitely knows and I have no other reason to trust her to protect me, but hearing her response every time as “I should probably get off my phone, huh? I bet you think I’m a horrible driver.” Well, uh, yeah. I don’t really feel comfortable with you driving if I constantly have to play defense for you when I’m not the one in the driver’s seat.

When driving, you are constantly put in fight or flight. You have to be vigilant and agile when it comes to when to brake or when to move out of the way. Staying off your phone is a must. If you need a GPS, have it loud enough that you can hear it clearly but you don’t need to pick up your phone. Texts and calls can wait until everyone has safely arrived at the destination. Just like how adults say that youth are so reckless when it comes to our phones, adults can lead by example and put them away. Checking your phone doesn’t buy back the time that parents have gotten on their knees for, begging their child to come back to them like the countless stories on the Kailee Mills foundation website, where each story was a tragic life gone too soon. Stay smart and stay focused. When you get on the road, you’re not just looking out for yourself, but for other people on the road who do not have the same intentions of being safe that you do. Checking your blindspots, checking your mirrors, not swerving and switching lanes rapidly or cutting people off just because you’re late for work, giving people angry reactions if they do cut you off, all of those things don’t help at all. I used to think that music wasn’t that big of a deal, but now that I’ve actually had it, I can’t bring myself to pay attention to music. I barely even talk to whoever is in the passenger seat until I’ve come to a complete stop because the slightest stray of focus and my foot can slip off the brakes and hit a car or be the end of someone’s story.