Impaired Driving: More Than Just “Driving Under The Influence”

To me, impaired driving means being behind the wheel of a vehicle and not giving full attention. It is often misunderstood that “impaired driving” means driving under the influence of alcohol or drugs. However, it means much more than that. While driving on the road as a licensed driver, it is a responsibility to fully focus on the road and nothing else. While drugs and alcohol is included in this, distractions also include phones, other people, or tiredness. All of these aspects contribute to impaired driving. In today's society, I feel that texting and driving is the most common impairment in drivers today. As a whole, we have become so addicted to our phones that we can not even make it 20 minutes to the grocery store without having the urge to check it. This has become extremely harmful to everyone on the roads. It is difficult to read a text and drive at the same time. This causes people to swerve, not brake on time, or even run red lights. Many car accidents are due to one or both of the drivers being on their phones and not paying attention. Driving takes undivided attention, and phones make this nearly impossible.

The summer before my junior year in high school, my mother, sister, and I were in a terrible car accident at an intersection. As we were turning left(our arrow being green), a man driving a truck ran a red light and T-boned us. The whole car slid across the intersection and it had to be totaled. The man that had hit us was driving impaired. We were not told exactly why he ran the red light, but he definitely did not just do it for fun. Whether he was half asleep, under the influence of drugs or alcohol, or on his phone, his full attention was not on the road. This caused a huge damper in our lives for quite some time. School was just about to start and my mom had to use my car because hers was gone. It also caused financial issues because my mom had to purchase a new car when she had just finished up her final payments on the one in the accident. Along with that financial burden was hospital bills because we had scratches, bruises and soreness all over our body. We had to go to the emergency room(not over anything life threatening) and we had to receive physical therapy. All of this damage was caused by one singular person who was impaired while driving. This experience truly shaped my viewpoint on driving. For the longest time, I was scared of even sitting behind a wheel. No matter how good of a driver you are, you can not control other people. Unfortunately, distractions are everywhere. This makes driving impaired a lot easier to do and a lot harder to prevent.

I believe that throughout driving education courses there should be many facts and statistics given about the dangers of driving. If more people, especially young people, are aware of how dangerous and negatively impactful distracted driving is, perhaps they would be less likely to do it. There needs to be proof to show that having the mindset of “I am a good driver, it is okay if I read this one text really quickly” is wrongful. People should be humbled in the sense that they are not the only people in the world. In real world scenarios, they can remember that just by reading one text, the next thing they know someone could be rushed to the hospital because you hit someone on the roads. Personally, I always try to prevent impaired driving by being a helpful passenger. Whenever my friends or parents are driving, I help them if there is anything that could be a distraction. For example, if they get a text, I read it out loud and I offer to respond to them. Simple things like this could solve a lot of issues. I also feel that by sharing stories of effects from impaired driving can scare the senses into some people. Especially with younger drivers, true stories of accidents and tragedies can cause them to not drive impaired. Afterall, they would not want something terrible to happen to them!

Overall, impaired driving is a severe issue that causes tragedies every single day. I feel very strongly about this topic; however, I believe that a lot of people do not realize the severity of it. More awareness and facts need to be spread. Impaired driving is not just “driving under the influence”, it is a lot more!