An impaired driver to me is an irresponsible person who chose to make a dangerous decision.  Technically speaking, it is someone who isn’t solely focused on driving; this could be from them being under the influence of drugs and/or alcohol, being distracted (texting), or being tired (driver fatigue).  It can be misunderstood by people because society for the most part associates impaired driving with things like DUIs.  Personally as someone who’s taken driver's education, I thought impaired driving and distracted driving were two different things.  Even the CDCs plays into this by having on their official website say,”Impaired driving happens when someone operates a vehicle while impaired by substances such as marijuana, illicit drugs, prescription drugs, over-the-counter medicines, and/or alcohol.”  
     Out of all the different things that can make a driver impaired, distracted driving is the most prevalent.  How being distracted affects your driving is it impairs your reaction time, reduces situational awareness, gives poor vehicle control, and increases crash severity.  Driving under the influence of alcohol causes reduced hand-eye coordination, impaired vision, slows reaction time, decreases judgement, and reduces concentration.  Driving under the influence of drugs is similar to alcohol by slowing reaction time, impairing judgement and decision making, reducing hand-eye coordination, creating vision problems, creating drowsiness and fatigue, altering perception, and creating aggressive and erratic behavior.  Lastly, driving while fatigued slows reaction time, impairs decision making, decreases alertness and focus, and impairs physical and motor skills.

     A personal experience that changed the way I think about impaired driving was when my brother was t-boned by a truck while driving with his permit.  We don’t know what caused the man to run that red light that day, but my brother and father, who was supervising my brother’s driving, said they believed the man was under the influence of some kind of substance. It was a terrifying experience to see my mom texting the family group chat saying she had to leave because Landon and dad were in an accident.  My sister who went with her privately texted me telling me that the airbags went off and the car was totaled but thankfully no one was hurt too bad.  Later when my brother got home he told me about the bruises from the seat belt and how he had even made sure to look both ways.   He explained about how if he hadn’t been paying attention and reacted to the situation like he did things could have been a whole lot worse.  It made me realize that those billboards with the phrases “drive sober or get pulled over” at some point can be applied to you.  You and the people in your life could easily be affected by someone else’s poor choices.  I obviously don’t have access to alcohol as a teen, but I still have my phone and I never want my choices that are only a few seconds long to end up being the reason someone gets hurt.

     Drivers education and traffic schools can change students' attitudes and behaviors around impaired drivers by hearing other people’s stories from their community.  When people hear about something happening close to home they are more likely to realize that these things do occur and could affect them one day.  Kids also react better to more personal things rather than just a teacher telling them a statistic and saying don’t do this or something bad will happen.  
     How I try to prevent impaired driving is by speaking up about the topic.  This won’t create a big change.  It also can come off as annoying and know-it-all to people that I discuss it with.  Yet, I try to discourage others from making the choice to impair themself while driving or when they talk about it or actually do make one of those choices when I’m in the car with them.  When someone is texting, a form of distracted driving, I’ll tell them to put their phone away or offer to help them so they can focus on the road.  If I hear about someone who decided to consume alcohol before getting behind the wheel I’ll tell them that their choice was dangerous for them and others.  This is a real case I had with a classmate.  Knowledge is power.  By sharing the knowledge and things we learn with others we set them up for success.  In this case, by sharing the knowledge of impaired driving you can let people know how to avoid it and practice safe driving instead so that everyone can feel safe on the roads.