Impaired driving has always been a big idea floating in the background of driver’s ed, the kind of thing you nod along to in class because you know you are supposed to take it seriously. But it did not fully hit me until I started driving myself a few weeks ago. There is a moment when you are sitting behind the wheel, and you feel the weight of it, the engine humming, the road stretching out, and the sudden realization that this machine could protect you or destroy you depending on one choice. That moment made me understand that impaired driving is not just about alcohol or drugs. It is about anything that takes a driver out of themselves. It is distraction, tiredness, overconfidence, stress, texting, or even one second of thinking about something else. It is the instant the driver becomes less present than the situation demands.

A lot of people misunderstand impaired driving, even people who did perfectly fine in their driver’s ed course. I think part of it is that we treat it like a rule instead of a threat. You hear “do not drink and drive,” but you never really imagine being the kid in the story who does not come home. When you do not imagine it, you think it will not be you. You think you can glance at your phone, or you are just tired but have driven tired before, or it is only a few minutes away. Understanding the danger intellectually is different from feeling it in your chest.

Now, Ethan was never my close friend, and I’m not sure if he even knew my name, but he was someone I had met once through another friend. I remember hearing about him long before the accident, the kind of kid everyone admired without trying. He was a star tennis player, an athlete, hardworking, funny, and a Jewish kid from the tri-state area who attended sleepaway camp, just like I did. Like him, I also have a sister, loving parents, and a tight group of friends. I could see pieces of my own life in his, which made the tragedy feel impossibly close. When he and his friend Drew were killed by a drunk driver on the way to celebrate a win, it didn't feel real. It felt like the kind of story you only hear adults whisper about, the kind of thing that happens to “someone else.”

Well, it happened. And it changed how a lot of people operate and think.

What hit me hardest was not even the first announcement. It was the aftermath. The videos Ethan’s dad still posts online. The way he talks about his son with love and grief. The way his best friend started a club at my school to raise awareness in his honor. The way Ethan’s foundation keeps his name alive. The siblings left behind. The space where he should still be growing up alongside the rest of us. The more I learned about him, the more I realized that impaired driving is not a statistic or a warning. It is a stolen future. The way the loss impacted those who were close to Ethan made me reflect on my own life, my own family, and the small choices I would make every day behind the wheel.

When I got my license and finally started driving alone, I thought about Ethan often as I sat down in the driver’s seat. I thought about the absurdity of it, that two kids with their whole lives ahead of them were killed because someone else made one selfish choice. It lasted maybe ten seconds, but changed everything forever for their family and friends.

That is what impaired driving is to me: a choice that explodes into consequences someone else has to live with.

Driver’s education and traffic school can make a difference because they remind you that driving is a responsibility, not just a skill. The best programs are not the ones with memorized rules. They are the ones that make you feel the gravity of driving. They show videos, real stories, crash reconstructions, and testimonies from families like Ethan’s. These programs push students past memorization and into empathy. When you actually understand the stakes, your behavior changes. You drive differently when someone else’s story is in the back of your mind.

I think about how drunk driving, texting, stress, and fatigue all have the same effect. They pull your awareness away from the road. Alcohol slows your reaction time. Phones steal your attention. They are all different paths to the same terrible moment where a driver becomes less capable than the situation requires. Teenagers today face all of them at once. They can be tired from school, work, stressed about anything, addicted to their phones, and/or surrounded by some not-so-great influences.

So my role, the only role I can control, is making sure I never treat driving like something casual. I keep my phone in the cupboard. I do not drive when I am tired. I do not let my friends get into cars with drivers who have been consuming drugs of any kind. And whenever it’s necessary, I make my peers understand that even one moment of distraction, one decision that seems small, can have consequences bigger than anyone can imagine.

Ethan’s life should not have ended where it did. The only thing any of us can do now is drive like we understand what he lost, what his family and friends lost, and what any of us could lose in one careless moment. If I can carry that awareness with me, and if I can pass it on to even one other person, then I am doing my part to prevent impaired driving, one choice at a time.