Impaired driving has multiple different ways of showing itself. Some of the ways impaired driving can appear are; alcohol, drugs, texting, talking, observing, and many more different types.

Impaired driving to me means any type of driving where the person isn't fully focused on driving. Some may say that texting while driving shouldn't be considered impaired, but I would have to heavily disagree with that. While you text you put lots of focus and energy towards texting and being taken from driving. Texting requires one or both of your hands, while driving requires the exact same.

Impaired driving can be misunderstood mainly on what is considered impaired driving. Experienced drivers are still prone to being narrow minded on what is really considered impaired. Most of them think that you can only be impaired by drugs or alcohol, which is quite false.

I feel that even though it is illegal in many places, texting while driving is the most common form of impaired driving today. Texting while driving is just so easy to do while the other forms are more difficult to execute. Most drugs are either too expensive or they lack the legal status for widespread use. While alcohol has a better legal status most people don’t want to bother to spend money on an alcoholic beverage. On the other hand, a great majority of people on the road own a cell phone, and that makes it the most accessible form of impairment.

Texting makes you focus less on the road and take your hands off the wheel. With your eyes turning from the road to the phone, making you prone to swerving or not seeing an important turn. Taking your hands off the wheel can turn into a missed turn as well, missed lane merge, and or going too slow and causing a traffic jam. 

I have had an experience where being impaired has affected my driving. I wasn’t impaired by my phone but by sleep. It was a rainy morning on my way to school. I had not slept very well the night before. As I was driving to school, I was swerving into a different lane. On one of my swerves I almost hit another car, I swerved to make sure I didn’t make contact. This experience was one of the scariest of my life.

The main lesson I learned from this is to keep my eyes on the road more and be aware of my surroundings. Another big lesson I learned was to do my best to not drive drowsy, because that is on par with driving drunk. Driving drunk and driving drowsy both bring the lessened ability to see, interpret, and judge others on the road. 

Traffic courses can do many things to help spread awareness. Teachers in the courses can spend longer talking about how dangerous it is to drive impaired. Another great thing they can do is show more accidents and problems that come from impaired driving. Traffic courses do a good job on their own talking about impaired driving but could always do better.

With the traffic courses teaching how to drive. Not only does a person need to learn how to drive but what to do if someone else on the road is impaired and going to cause an accident. I feel personally that driving courses don’t do the greatest job at projecting the extended dangers of the road. Yes the instructors do teach how drunk driving is very dangerous by also giving examples but they fail to really capture the full picture of impaired driving. Driving courses focus mainly on driving under the influence, while lightly touching on phone use while operating a car. As I have stated before, being on a phone is easier, cheaper, and just all around more accessible, because of newer phone holders people have to use their phones without having to hold them. The holders provide a new way to be distracted with a different set of risks. Phone holders usually sit farther from a person’s face and in turn if someone couldn’t see very well, and then needing to lean in to see, making the road a complete second thought.

With my status as a student I couldn’t do a whole lot in spreading the dangers of impaired driving. For simplicity, I could do as much as talk and tell my friends how dangerous driving while impaired is. I could also have them tell their friends and so on and so forth. 

With my knowledge and ability to make good first impressions, I could use it to bring groups of people together and spread awareness on impaired driving.