It was a nice red. Not too red, not too bright. I was waiting for the day that my brother would get tired of it so that he could pass it down to me. I saw the message. I had to leave school. After 5 hours of driving my sister found an article reporting the accident. The car was on its side and completely unrecognizable. Turns out a U-Haul driver was distracted while driving. I mean he was leaving through an entrance instead of the exit. It was a miracle they didn't sustain any life threatening injuries, both my brother and the U-Haul driver. They both walked away with a couple of scratches. But that one mistake from the U-Haul driver resulted in my brother losing his truck. The crash could have been avoided if the driver wasn’t distracted. Impaired driving is a hazard that most often gets overlooked if it's not involved with substance abuse; however, I believe that there needs to be more awareness than just substance impairment.

For starters, my definition of impaired driving is when someone is driving while texting/on their phone, under a substance, talking to friends, not looking at the road, and being sleep deprived/tired. Most of these impairments lead to overconfidence which is not good. It would be good if the overconfidence happened when there is no driving impairment but in this case it is not. Confidence is something every good driver has. Now, I like to believe I am a good driver. Some could argue the opposite when they see how I park or how I turn but I tell myself I am good in order to build confidence instead of fear. I used to be really confident that I knew how to do a three point turn but one time I hit a car in the process. However, I hit the car due to sleep deprivation. I was so tired but I still got behind the wheel. I know my body and every time I am sleep deprived I feel great. I feel invincible. This leads to my overconfidence in talking, socializing, and driving. I have noticed that when I used to drive sleep deprived I would do more risky maneuvers. In this case I was really confident that with the space there was and the speed I had I could do my three point turn with very minimal braking. I was very wrong. I ended up giving a car a love tap. It was loud but there was no damage. Could I have avoided all of this, yes I could have. I could have asked my dad to drive me to school. I could have gotten a ride from a friend. I could have done anything but gotten behind the wheel and hit a car. 

Furthermore, I have decided to try and avoid driving impaired. I never really thought about how dangerous it could be to drive while sleep deprived or tired. It never occurred to me that driving while tired was a form of impaired driving. However, this changed when I was on Instagram doom scrolling. I saw a reel where the guy was on a highway, going at least 60 mph, and he was dozing off. His eyes would close a little, his head would drop down then then right back up. He was swerving in his lane. It went on for a good 30 seconds until he closed his eyes completely and started heading toward the barrier divider. He almost crashed. However, he managed to wake himself up and stopped the car in the emergency pull off lane. He laughed it off and took a minute in the pull off lane and just sped off. When I saw that short clip I began to realize how dangerous it is to drive when you are sleep deprived. I began to think of times where I drove while I was sleep deprived. I came up with a handful of times. I realized how frequently I was driving around while being tired and how I couldn’t really remember the drive or how I got home. I made it my goal to get better sleep in order to be more focused while driving. If I am too tired I admit it and ask my dad to drive me instead. I would rather be safe than sorry. Ever since I started my goal I noticed a lot of other drivers swerving or nodding off. I am able to be more alert and avoid the drivers that are impaired. I am also no longer putting others in danger. 

On another note, alcohol and drugs are the more common types of impairment among drivers followed closely by distracted driving. As many know, alcohol and drugs affect your judgement and decision making. Distracted driving affects your focus on driving and your spatial awareness. Both contribute to unsafe behavior by not allowing you to make good judgements, decision making, and not being fully focused on the road. Most people are aware of alcohol and drug impairments but many tend to ignore the distracted driving impairments. More and more people are getting used to driving while texting, calling, or playing on their phones. I get it sometimes my mom will call me after school but I am driving. I would rather have her get mad at me for something that is not important instead of causing a crash because I was on my phone. We can't multitask no matter how much we claim we can. We can try and divert our attention to multiple things but they won't be perfectly done. As for the alcohol and drug impairments we all know what bad things they cause and why. We have been told over and over again yet people continue to believe they are not going to act that way. I believe this is because people don't actually know what type of harm they could be in until they or a loved one experience it. 

For this reason, drivers education and traffic school courses could help new drivers understand the dangers of impaired driving by showing them how said impairments are dangerous. It’s one thing to hear why it's dangerous rather than see why it's dangerous. I mean when there is a crash everyone slows down to see what happened just to end up saying “Oh, I hope they are okay” and then drive off. Anyhow, in these courses instructors can show video clips of people proving how driving impaired is dangerous. I recently watched a video from a channel called Try Guys where they tested driving under the influence of alcohol. They proved how bad it is to drive under the influence by driving on a track. The first time around  they did it sober. They had to do stop signs, go through a narrow “road”, sharp corners, change lanes, and parallel park. They were timed and judged on their driving. The second time around they were drunk. All four of the guys ended up hitting a cone, reversing wrong, poorly estimating speed, or making poor decisions. There are probably other videos where people prove why it's bad to do certain driving impairments. Which would be great to use in driving courses. I know for me hearing someone say “it's dangerous don't do it” I begin to wonder why and how it's dangerous. For some people that is what drives them to do said dangerous things. So seeing someone conduct an experiment, for the sake of helping people understand why it’s dangerous, truly helps know why it is bad.

However, some might argue that this can lead drivers to become scared of driving. I don't think it will. When you really think about it people are already scared of driving. So, if you show them the dangers of driving impaired it will reduce their chances of driving impaired. Some might even make personal connections which they would then share with friends. Causing a domino effect. It would lead to even more people learning about the dangers of driving impaired. I know that the only reason I am scared of driving is because I don't know what someone else might do. If I know that people learn about how dangerous it can be to drive impaired then I know that at least they are aware of it. It is better for people to be aware than to be in the dark.

All in all, changing people's behavior and attitudes on impaired driving is hard. Some people will learn from real life examples while others will not. Some are influenced by their friends. I know that my friends are influenced by each other. Whenever my friends are driving their car, and I am a passenger, I have made it known that I will knock their phone out of their hand if they are driving. It seems extreme but most crashes that involve teenagers are by distracted driving and excessive speed. One time my friend was driving and decided to grab her phone. She was looking down then up all the while we were going at least 40 mph and braking very late—to the point where we were about to rear end the car in front of us. I grabbed the phone, turned it off and put it on my lap. She started to get irritated saying it's her phone and that she needed to text her mom. I told her that I would text her mom if it was super important but that she needed to focus on the road. She said some more comments but eventually gave up on it because she wasn’t even texting her mom. She was on Spotify trying to find another song. However, because I grabbed the phone out of her hand we began to drive less erratically. Our speed went down to 30, which was the speed limit, and we weren't braking late anymore. I have done this on other occasions which has resulted in my friends not using their phones while driving. They might do it when I am not in the car but at least I know that when they are with me they are more likely to drive safely and be more aware of their surroundings. 

So, while you think “oh ill just send this quick message” or “I let me quickly change this song” you are putting not only yourself but others around you in danger. I would like to think that the person next to me is paying full attention to the road. We should be disciplined enough to know we should not be driving impaired. We know right from wrong and are old enough to make smart decisions. The amount of accidents that can be avoided due to a person driving impaired would disappear. Just because news outlets don't broadcast it but many distracted driving accidents are becoming more common. I don't mean to disregard driving under the influence accidents because they are the most common type of accident; however, people think that every bad accident is because of someone being drunk or on drugs. There should be more awareness on distracted driving accidents. If there would in maybe 10 years I would have gotten to drive that gorgeous red truck. Instead the truck gave me an unscathed brother.