I went to my senior year homecoming with what the urgent care doctor suspected to be whiplash. I assume her conclusion was correct, as being hit from behind by another vehicle certainly does some damage. With my back windshield smashed apart, a coat of broken glass littering the trunk of my car, and the rear of my vehicle having definitely seen better days, I got my first individual experience with the effects of impaired driving.

       Everyone hears some variation of the phrase, “don’t drive distracted,” and yet somehow accidents keep happening as the result of that exact warning. There’s an interesting tick to mankind. The idea that “it won’t happen to me” is, oddly enough, so deeply ingrained into an individual's brain. Only when a person finds themselves in the exact scenario they couldn’t fathom occurring does the impact settle. This must be why distracted driving incidents occur so often, as it’s hard to envision oneself in that scenario. At least it is for most people.

       When I was rear-ended on my way from school by a distracted driver, I was only a few minutes from home. On a drive I’d completed so many times before, I hadn’t expected to be involved in a collision. That’s something for the highway. Really, that’s something for someone else. Afterall, it couldn’t happen to me. Right?

       I don’t believe both myself and the man who hit me were unable to fathom the idea that we could be in an accident. Obviously, it’s a possibility when driving a vehicle. But you never expect it to happen, not really.

       This isolates the true danger of impaired driving: the human mind. Our brains are so complex, and yet many of us fall short to the same temptations, the same ideas. It’s not that drivers don’t believe they could be in a wreck, but our minds are removed from the possibility. This is an aspect of driver education that is so incredibly important. Educating individuals on the fallacies of our thinking processes and then proving them wrong is an experience drivers need to have.

       In eleventh grade I did a presentation where I analyzed a documentary titled “From One Second to the Next”. It depicted victims and drivers who had harmed and/or killed others by texting while driving. One idea linked the drivers who shared their story.

They couldn’t have fathomed what their actions were going to cause.

It’s hard for a person’s first thought when sending a simple “I love you” text to go to the reality that it could result in death. No one diverts their eyes from the road with the intention to cause an accident because it’s so hard to believe something so small and quick could cause a person to join the category of collisions. People struggle to see that it can happen to them.

       Drivers need to know the impact they could have and understand that this impact is a very real thing. Being educated on impaired driving scenarios and the effects the accidents have caused are colossal deterrents to being a distracted driver. We as drivers have a responsibility to understand the power our vehicles have. We cannot simply adhere to the comforting idea that accidents are foreign. Recognizing what can happen because of your own actions is the most important step in preventing impaired driving.

No one wants to be the person who rear ends a highschooler on their way home from school the day before their last homecoming. No human desires to be the one who destroys a single mom’s car. No one wants to be the person who commits an innocent individual to be on life support. No one wants to be the driver who condemns a bystander to the grave.
       Coming to terms with the realities behind the dangers of impaired driving is so incredibly important to keeping individuals safe. To create an atmosphere where drivers are aware of their actions and the possibilities is a better world, for not only bystanders' safety but the driver's safety themselves.

       Nobody wants to be someone who makes another person’s life worse. So why is impaired driving still such a rampant problem?