The
End of the Road
Tyler
Prehl
Driving
fatalities are unnecessary.

225
million licensed drivers share the road daily in America. According
to drverknowledge.com, there are roughly 6 million car accidents per
year, which means over 200 million licensed drivers get from point A
to point B just fine, with zero mistakes. Why are these other
millions of people accidentally causing the loss of human life?
State
governments require every driver to take a driver’s test to receive
a driver’s license, so theoretically, every driver knows what they
need to know to safely and successfully drive themselves from place
to place. If every person explicitly followed every rule of the road,
the only accidents that might occur are those dealing with car
malfunctions and unpredictable conditions. But these are not the
causes of most fatal car accidents. Unfortunately, the blame falls to
distracted driving.
What
could be so important on your phone that you absolutely must
check your phone and respond to a text while driving. Are you trying
to get a promotion at work? Are you about to have a child? Perhaps
you have an ill family member, and want to check up on them? An
endless number of situations could arise, and yet would any matter
more than valuing your own and other people’s lives? Even if the
life of a friend or family member is on the line, you cannot help if
you are dead on the side of the road.
Modern
media has finally started imploring drivers to not text and drive,
wait to take that phone call, and simply be more present while
driving. Morbid TV commercials portraying survivors of car accidents
and other advertisements poke at people’s willingness to risk the
consequences portrayed just for the sake of a text. While they should
absolutely continue, a more gruesome, brutally real portrayal could
go a long way in opening people’s eyes to the possibility of death
and the harrowing consequences of their actions.


It starts with societal rejection of distracted driving. Public shame
motivates people like nothing else, and while it may seem harsh, the
loss of loved ones is harsher. People need to establish among their
friends and family that they do not drive distracted and find
other ways to respond to messages that “need” responding, such as
a passenger in the car acting as a messenger. People need to
understand that as soon as they distract themselves while driving,
the end of the road might arrive much sooner than expected.