Numerous people in my life have dodged a bullet when it comes to preventing serious injury or death caused by impaired driving. A close family member towards me, for example, was intoxicated behind the wheel more often than not. Every time I would enter their car, whether we were heading to the grocery store or a sporting event at my high school, they got behind the wheel under the influence in some way. When I was too young to notice, I believed their driving behaviors to be sporadic and impulsive, but it was only as I grew past the age of my voice cracking on a consistent basis when I noticed something was seriously wrong. Without getting into the details on what caused this person to become intoxicated on a regular basis, their confidence and disregard for the safety of everyone on the road stuck with me on a personal level. When I sat down in my first driver’s ed course before my freshman year of high school, I knew I couldn’t become negatively impacted by any form of impairment on the road like they did.

To me, impaired driving is having something interfere with your ability to fully pay attention while driving, whether that’s a phone, substance, or even being severely sleep deprived behind the wheel. Many people don’t fully understand the less widely regarded dangerous methods to become impaired while operating a vehicle, such as gluing your eyes to the radio to find the perfect station or putting all of your attention into eating a burger you just bought at a drive through. You don’t see countless ads on television about these forms of impairments and your instructors certainly don’t talk about them enough, so these acts may not seem as serious to commit, even though they can cause damage to yourself or others in a harmful way. 

The forms of impairment that are more widely ingrained in your memory as dangerous and negative to society as a whole, alcohol and drug use, are common by few for what I believe to be two reasons: confidence, unseriousness, and convenience. The reason many people find themselves behind the wheel of a vehicle intoxicated is because they are confident in their abilities to drive under any condition, including an impaired one. This mindset is harmful, however, because all it takes is one small slip up, which can be caused by a slower reaction time or reduced concentration, to kill themself or an innocent life. Confidence doesn’t help with these defects to the brain caused by alcohol. Also, across social media, many users will poke fun at the thought of driving while drunk. Although many of these users will never actually drive while intoxicated, the changing from a serious to a lighthearted and humorous topic has caused many ordinary people to become eased to drinking while driving. A more widely known acceptance of driving drunk causes more people to do it, which leads to more fatalities on the road. The last reason for driving drunk is convenience, but choosing to drive drunk to save a few minutes when it has the possibility of taking a life, the idea becomes absurd.

There are ways to minimize the damaging mindsets or ignorance of impaired driving that many members of society have. I believe that driver’s education courses should spend more time on units covering impaired driving and the risks of it. During my time in this program, it was mentioned but not looked into to the extent that it should have been. Students don’t come out of these classes scared of what could happen if they choose to drive while not fully paying attention to the road, which is why more scare tactics should be used. Instead of simply stating that you shouldn’t drink and drive, share facts and personal stories about people who were affected by the choice to drive impaired by another driver. These teachings could instill a belief into students that driving while impaired is serious and should not be taken lightly. 

Also, the acts of individuals, including myself, can play a major role in the prevention of future impaired driving simply by calling it out. Whether this calling out is on a personal level or towards someone you don’t know, telling someone that their actions are unsafe and should be frowned upon are something they aren’t used to hearing. Personally, when I hear someone state that my actions are having a negative impact on other people, it sticks with me, and I believe that it will stick with impaired drivers also.

There are very few justifiable reasons to drive while impaired, and we all need to act in order to prevent unjustified deaths from occurring because of these poor decisions on the road. Even though many may experience impaired driving with someone close to them, it doesn’t mean you have to make those same choices. In fact, it should inspire you to do the opposite.