About Chloé Noever
A Senior at Alabama School of Cyber Technology & Engineering. Chloé wants to become a neurosurgeon and plans to attend University College Dublin in Ireland to pursue her neurosurgeon degree. She hopes to leave a positive mark on her patients and her community. Her favorite hobby is creative writing, and Chloé aims to publish her debut fiction novel as a professional writer by 2027.
Parents: David Noever, Software Engineer Specialist & Samantha Noever, Consultant
Distracted Driving Essay
Imagine this scenario: a girl- a senior in high school- sits in her car with a frilly pink prom gown. She proudly starts the ignition, about to head towards downtown for pictures. Her eyes sparkle-literally from the makeup she wears- but also because she has a bright future ahead of her. A college scholarship awaits her at a university she is excited to attend, and graduation is only a month away.
She drives from her house and merges onto the highway. Pop music is blasting; the traffic isn’t particularly heavy. Her phone buzzes- once, then again. She checks her mirrors. No one is behind her and no one is in her blindspot.
It’s prom night, she tells herself. One of her friends may have a question about where they are meeting. Someone could have found a good parking spot. There could be a transportation issue. She reaches down to pick up her phone, her eyes darting between the road before her and the messages she is skimming.
Her phone payment plan is being updated.
She scoffs, her hands jerking the wheel, and signals a left merge.
BANG!
Her body jolts forward against the airbag, her pink frills splattered with glass and blood…
One in four road deaths in America are attributed to people that allow themselves to get distracted while driving. When we think about distracted driving, the idea sounds like a distant problem. On a daily basis, we reassure ourselves that our phones are in our bags or on the dashboard while driving. Our hands are at ten and two on our wheels, and our left leg is planted firmly on the footrest. However, we often neglect the other aspects of our car ride that can distract us: our friend is ranting about a class they hate, the song on the radio is too sad, or we cannot get over the chapter of the book we just read. Any of these things, whether we like to admit it or not, can pull our eyes and minds away from the road ahead of us.
In states like Texas, the average highway speed limit is as high as 85 miles per hour. Our risk for distracted driving with dire consequences increases the more we push ourselves. It takes about twenty seconds for our eyes to readjust to the road when we glance at our phone screen or take in our friend’s crinkled eyes laughing. Twenty seconds is all it takes for a car to creep up in a blindspot or for us to notice that the car in front of us is slowing down steadily, and then we
become a part of the 12,405 traffic deaths per year in the United States alone. The most intimidating part of distracted driving is that data is difficult to collect; while surveys can give a rough estimate of how many people drive with distractions, analysts examining the data struggle with the vague definition of the term ‘distracted driving’. While we typically associate distractions to driving with screens, other people, or even substance abuse, distracted driving can also be singing along to the radio or thinking about an argument earlier that day. People are less likely to admit to these distractions, as too many drivers on the road myself included- are not exempt from these lesser-advertised distractions.
Previous solutions to distracted driving, while effective, have presented their own problems for drivers. A popular phone mode, “Do Not Disturb”, appears to be the ideal solution to the primary technological issue behind texting while driving. However, in their day-to-day lives, drivers want to make adjustments to their music or audiobook and desire the ability to field emergency calls. Believing that “Do Not Disturb” (DND) prevents them from accessing these services, drivers favor having their phone function normally. To accommodate this, new features on certain phones allow for DND to be automatically enabled during conditions in which distracted driving could be fatal, like stormy conditions or congested traffic. Unfortunately, this feature does not solve the contention of drivers’ calls being silenced. A viable solution is to allow for users to designate contacts allowed to ‘pass through’ the silencing mechanism that DND mode features, alleviating drivers’ concerns that an emergency call will go unanswered.
Even with DND mode, it is simply not enough to passively encourage drivers to stay off their phones and focus on the road. Insurance companies have begun offering incentives for families and their children on the road by using apps and geolocation to monitor their driving habits in exchange for insurance discounts. This initiative has been widely adopted and shows promise for eliminating drivers’ distractions. When we talk about distracted driving, analysts and policymakers often forget that the target population for these initiatives- primarily those between the ages of sixteen to twenty- have been told of these two primary prevention methods and still continue to drive while allowing distractions to cloud their judgement.
As a recently licensed driver, I find myself slipping into the well of excuses we drivers too often make. My friends and music won’t distract me from the road, I reason whenever I get in the car. I can admit that I have found my thoughts drifting and my hands fidgeting with the radio while driving before and, as a result, have nearly forgotten to check for other cars in my blind spots before merging. To truly create change in distracted driving, our friends and family are the movement’s biggest advocates. My friends insisting that they don’t mind driving in silence and my family ensuring that I do not drive with the radio playing are my reminders of how much I wanted to get my license and, more importantly, how much I want to keep it.
Driving, to me, means the freedom to create plans with my friends and to be able to assert myself more independently. I do not want to get injured or, worse, killed in an accident that was preventable. Ensuring that children and adults alike understand the very real, very violent consequences to driving with ‘negligible’ distractions is critical to reducing the number of distracted drivers on American roads and highways. We must remind drivers that the people they love the most- their children, their siblings, their best friends, their parents- are often passengers in the vehicles that we operate. In order to keep them safe as much as ourselves and the other drivers on the road, we must hold ourselves accountable to the words we promised the people who first gave us our car keys: I understand that this is a privilege, and I won’t abuse it.
Messages and music will still be there five minutes later, but our lives aren’t worth what could, after it all is over, have been a spam message.
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