Impaired driving used to feel like one of those things adults exaggerated to scare teenagers. It felt like this big, dramatic worst-case scenario that only happened to people who chugged down five drinks before getting behind the wheel. When I was younger, that’s what I thought it meant: alcohol, drugs, the stuff in those giant posters in driver’s ed rooms. But the more I started actually learning to drive, the more I realized how much smaller, and honestly, more normal, it can look. Sometimes impairment is one second, one life-altering second where your brain gets distracted when it shouldn’t.

I learned that in little ways first. Like the time I was driving through my neighborhood, literally one minute from home, and “California Gurls” started playing on Spotify. I love that song, and I went to skip back and replay it because I wanted to hear the intro again. I wasn’t even looking at my phone for that long. Maybe two seconds. But when I looked up, the light at the intersection had already turned green, and the car behind me had inched forward like they were about to honk. Thankfully nothing happened, no close call. But it made me realize how all it took was two seconds of “oh wait, let me go back to that part of the song.” I kept thinking about how that seemingly tiny distraction would’ve played out if I’d been merging onto the freeway instead of sitting at a red light.

That’s the thing: impaired driving isn’t always obvious. Sometimes it’s literally just… being human. Getting tired. Getting distracted. Trying to change the song. And that’s what makes it so dangerous because it doesn’t feel dangerous until it happens to you.

I started noticing these little things more once I got my permit and began my practice hours. I grew up in an area where almost half the city was Indian, so the Indian shops, restaurants, and grocery stores are literally part of my driving practice map. Patel Brothers, India Bazaar, Desi District, the local dosa place; these are the landmarks I turned around when practicing my turns or trying to figure out when to slow down. Because everything is so close together and familiar, I assumed I’d feel confident right away. And I did at first… until I didn’t.

One night, I was practicing my nighttime hours with my dad. We had already driven through the local streets, past all the Indian restaurants, toward the library, and finally toward the airport, where the roads are way busier and planes fly overhead almost every ten minutes. I remember feeling proud, like wow, I’m finally doing this. I’m driving at night on the freeway.

But the thing with nighttime driving is that it can creep up on you. One moment you’re alert, and the next, it’s been over an hour, and your eyes start getting heavy even if you don’t realize it immediately. My dad always asks me if I’m tired and if he needed to switch to drive us home. I told him I was fine, because when you’re learning to drive, you want to prove you can handle it. But by the time I got to the freeway entrance, I wasn’t as focused as I thought.

I merged when I shouldn’t have. A huge truck was coming, and I completely misjudged the timing. My dad grabbed onto the door handle and yelled my name, and I swerved back into the lane I came from. I still remember the way my whole body tensed up afterward. I wasn’t hurt, the truck wasn’t even that close at the end of the day, and we didn’t crash. But I knew exactly why it happened: I was tired. That drowsiness blurred my judgment just enough for me to make a choice I would never normally make.

After that, I started paying attention to impaired driving in ways I never had before. I noticed how many of my friends check their messages at stoplights or how someone will say “wait, let me text my mom real quick” while on the road. I remember I had a friend once try to merge lanes and completely miss seeing a car because she was talking to me and half-glancing at her phone. I wasn’t trying to parent her or anything, but I just said, “hey, there’s a car coming,” and she immediately corrected it. That moment made me realize how important it is to look out for one another.

Even teaching my younger sister Maanvi, who’s going to start learning how to drive next year, changed the way I think about it. She sits in the car sometimes while I practice, and I catch myself being more cautious just because she’s there.

Driver’s education has definitely helped me understand the technical rules (speed limits, right-of-way, signs) but the part that shifted my mindset wasn’t the worksheets or videos. It was the real practice that exposed all the tiny ways impairment sneaks in. The little distractions. The short bursts of fatigue. The “I’ll just do this real quick” moments that happen without thinking. Driving school talks a lot about alcohol and drugs, which is important, but I think the reason people misunderstand impairment is because no one emphasizes how it can happen any day of the week. You don’t need to be drunk to be unsafe. You can just be tired. Or stressed. Or distracted by whatever’s happening on your phone.

What makes driver’s education effective, at least from my experience, is how it forces you to reflect on things you didn’t even realize were issues. My instructor didn’t just say “don’t get distracted.” He’d actually point out, during a lesson, “See how your eyes drifted right there? That’s how fast things can happen.” That accountability taught me more than any video ever could.

In the end, the role I play in preventing impaired driving starts with myself. I can’t control what other people do, but I can control whether I’m alert and making responsible choices every time I get in the car. I can make sure my sister Maanvi learns that before she even starts driving. I can speak up when a friend seems distracted. I can put my phone in the middle console instead of the cup holder. I can pull over if I’m tired. And I can keep reminding myself that it only takes one second to change everything.

Driving is about getting there safely: for me, for the people with me, and for the people I share the road with. And learning that, through all these small moments, is what shaped the way I think about impaired driving today.