My brother Isaac has near-perfect handwriting, the kind that looks exactly like the letters in those penmanship workbooks we used to do in elementary school. When we were younger he seemed perfect to me; his clean room a stark contrast to my room, which was regularly so messy you couldn’t even see the floor. My unkempt hair, dirty fingernails, and chronically skinned knees only amplified my comparison to his neat appearance. As we grew up, he seemed to maintain this image-the textbook definition of book smart: 4.0 high school student, a computer science major in college, private math tutor. He is exactly the type of person you would expect to be an excellent driver, following the speed limit signs rigorously, always using his blinkers, and never driving distracted or unsafely. He passed his driver’s test effortlessly on the first try, making it even more frustrating when I had to retake the test because I couldn’t parallel park to save my life. I have always placed him on this sort of pedestal, especially when we were little. I loved him to the moon and back and wanted to be just like him.
“Emma, are you awake?” A text message from my brother’s girlfriend popped up on my phone in the middle of the night on a weekend in summer a few years ago. Indeed, I was awake, more so now, so I responded accordingly, “Yeah what’s up?”, the message that followed was one that made my stomach drop, and my heart immediately started pounding. “Isaac is in the driveway; you need to go get him– he’s not ok” I bolted out of bed and threw my bedroom door open. On the other side of the door was my brother, his face stained with tears. He shakily explained that he had driven his girlfriend home, and on his way home, he had fallen asleep on the road. His car veered off the highway and crashed into a speed limit sign, ending up in a ditch. He was startled awake by the crash, and in a state of shock, he had driven himself home. By the grace of God, he was unharmed, and his car was relatively undamaged, aside from a dent on the hood from the impact of the sign. I hugged my brother and felt his tall, thin frame shake violently as he cried. He was worried that our parents would be upset about the car, but I knew they wouldn’t care. The relief that he was alive would easily outweigh any frustration they might have about the car.
I will never forget how I felt that night; the shock of hearing about his experience, the overwhelming relief that he was alive, and the terrifying realization that the simple assumption that he wasn’t too tired to drive could’ve cost my brother his life.
I have always been a relatively cautious driver. Admittedly, I occasionally sent a text or took a phone call while driving, but I would consider myself a pretty safe driver overall. After the experience of almost losing my brother to reckless driving, I am proudly a stickler for safe driving. Insisting that all of my friends text me when they get home, constantly asking people if they’re ok to drive, and reminding my friends to not use their phones while driving. I’m sure I sometimes annoy my friends with my constant and sometimes overbearing remarks, but I’ll never stop because I cringe to imagine how devastating it would be to lose any of them in a preventable crash.
When I was younger, I had no interest in getting my driver’s license: the whole concept of driving was terrifying to me. I felt like it would be too easy to make a mistake and hurt someone. As I got older, this fear melted away a bit, especially once I started driver’s training. I quickly gained confidence and happily got my license. Looking back now, my fears of hitting cars in a vacant parking lot seem somewhat foolish and naive, but my fear wasn’t unjustified. Driving a car is a huge responsibility. When you drive with other people in the car, you literally take their lives into your hands, and you assume responsibility for keeping them safe. It’s very common, especially in young drivers, to assume that you are the exception to the rule. Nobody can safely text and drive, except you. Nobody can safely drink and drive, but you’ll be fine. It’s never a good idea to drive tired, but there’s no way you would fall asleep at the wheel. This reckless mindset costs people their lives every day. It’s so easy to think that it’ll never happen to you until it does-or until it happens to someone you love. My brother will never drive recklessly again because he knows how easily one simple mistake can completely change your life and the lives of the people whom love you.