I don’t remember the impact, but I remember everything immediately after it. Last September, my sister was driving and we had just merged onto Interstate 95. She was talking to me and was focused on our conversation, when suddenly the car in front of us slammed on their brakes, and all I could do was stare into their brake lights as our car hurdled forwards.

I had never blacked out before. It was the smell of smoke that caused my brain to finally start processing the goings on surrounding me. There were spots in my vision and I couldn’t quite figure out exactly what had happened, but I knew my sister wasn’t reacting and our car was filling with smoke, so in my haze I managed to say “We need to get out,” and I scrambled to unbuckle myself and throw my door open. 

My sister later told me that those words are what got her to finally snap back into reality. She was as confused as I was, so she attempted to pull the car off the highway to get out of the way of traffic before giving up in the right lane and climbing out of the car. The car in front of us had pulled off about 50 feet in front of us. We had taken off their back bumper, and it laid on the road a few feet behind the rest of their car, but otherwise their car was uninjured. The same couldn’t be said about ours. 

Our hood was caved in about a foot. Our windshield was cracked and our car was dripping fluid onto the highway. Smoke poured out from underneath the hood and I could smell the putrid burning smell of the airbags setting off.

The second my sister joined me, I told her we should call our mother. Her phone was still inside the car, so we had to use mine. When my mother picked up, I told her “We got into a bad crash,” and then I started crying, adrenaline tearing through my body. My sister took the phone from me, but it didn’t take long until she was crying, too. The next few minutes passed in a haze, but at some point the police approached and questioned us. They were sympathetic, and I imagine it’s because we looked pathetic: two young girls sobbing with their car totaled next to them. 

After my father arrived and spoke to the police, he drove us home. It had taken maybe two hours to get things sorted out with the police, and they decided that legally the crash was our fault. I was still crying when I got into the car.

It was then that I started to feel the pain. My knees and ribs ached from the impact of the airbags, and there was a stabbing pain in my shoulder, though whether it was from whiplash or some injury in my muscle, I don’t know. The pain only got worse over the next few days, but it took nearly a month before my mother took me to the doctor. 

The accident was legally my sister’s fault, and my sister was listed under the insurance for that car. I was also listed under the insurance for that car, so, as far as insurance was concerned, the accident was my fault. When I got to the doctor they told me that they could only look at one of my issues since our insurance wasn’t covering the visit. Luckily my ribs had stopped hurting a few days after the accident, but my knees and neck wouldn’t stop hurting. 

I ultimately decided that my knees were the most pressing issue, and they sent me to a physical therapy office. I still don’t know what happened to my shoulder. I went eight of the twelve recommended times before I stopped. Insurance wasn’t covering anything, so it cost around nine hundred dollars for those visits. My knees stopped hurting for about a week, before the pain came back with vengeance. It hasn’t left, all because my sister had subconsciously focused more on our conversation than the road in front of her. 

I work at a restaurant as a cook, which requires me to stand for hours. After about twenty minutes the pain gets unbearable and the poor soul I’m working with has to cover for me. It takes even less time for my shoulder to begin to protest at the movements it takes to shape a ball of pizza dough. 

Some days I find that I can’t walk very fast at all, and I dread to think what could happen if there ever comes a time that I need to run and can’t. Despite the fact that I had done everything right, I am potentially permanently injured as a result of distracted driving. This is why it’s important for new drivers to be aware of the dangers of distracted driving. For both their safety, and the safety of others, it’s important to push the significance of staying focused while driving. 

Most new drivers are required to take a drivers ed class before they are granted their licenses. These classes often focus around the rules of the road and dissuading drivers from drunk-driving or driving while tired. While these are both important, these classes should also emphasize the importance of staying focused while driving. This isn’t just not texting and driving, it’s looking down at your phone for even a moment to skip a song, or focusing on the car tailgating you while neglecting to look at the one in front of you, or participating in deep conversations with your sister in the passenger seat. By focusing more on the mundane distractors, new drivers can be more aware of what to avoid when driving. Most new drivers know they shouldn’t text and drive, but they don’t realize just how easy it is to get distracted while driving and permanently impact their own or someone else’s life.