The Repercussions of Your Actions.

I remind my mother about the carelessness of texting and driving as she reaches for it with the latest ping of her phone. She replies with some excuse about work, yet the phone returns to its proper place in her purse while in charge of the vehicle. My story is an example of how many innocent bystanders (especially young children) can be horribly affected by the second it takes for a driver to hit send.

Even though everyone seems to be aware of the consequences, driving while focusing on something besides the road is the highest cause of accidents in America. We’ve all seen the terrible and all too real commercials about driving safe: the teen driver halfway through sending a text message when a freeze-frame occurs to show the driver about to hit a little girl biking home from practice, or the adult pulled over for texting and driving while in a school zone. But watching it before a YouTube video and experiencing it first hand change someone on radically different levels.

The first step is education. People need to be aware of the damage they can cause. Personally, I learned how a car can turn into a weapon through Drivers Ed class. The consequences of our actions were drilled into our heads. When drivers become aware of how their recklessness, whether it be using your phone for a quick call or driving after a night at the bar, affects others, it rapidly changes their behavior. If you think of not only the other car you hit, but that person’s mother, brother, sister, or anyone else they’re important to-- you realize how wide a net of destruction you cast.

To become a better driver, thus reducing driver deaths, people need to know that they can help the problem. By simply putting your phone in a bag while driving you can strikingly reduce the number of accidents you’re prone to. It’s legitimately that easy. For most people, however, this simple change is too much of a difficulty. Through personal experience I’ve seen how hard it is to get a licensed driver to listen and put their phone away-- its an almost daily struggle with my parents. Luckily we’ve never been in an accident due to texting behind the wheel, and it’s getting easier to put the phone away everyday.

Together we can help make the road a safer place. People must work together to reduce distractions while driving and hold each other accountable to following the rules of the road. This may mean taking some reeducation drivers ed. courses, or setting your phone to driving mode to limit the alerts. It’s different for everyone, but the outcome remains the same. As a driving community we can make a difference and lower the amount of families impacted by driver’s deaths through these change of habits.