By Morgan Skovich
Multi-tasking is a way of life; we all face constant demands for our time. Sadly though, many individuals try to multi-task while driving, which is a detestable idea.
When it comes to drivers, it seems that concentrating on one particular task for a lengthy period of time is difficult. We feel the need to fiddle with the radio, put on makeup, and in most cases, use our cellphones or other electronic devices. Because driving a car and focusing on your surroundings just isn’t satisfying our attention spans enough, we throw a cellphone into the mix.
With essentially every American owning a mobile device, divert driving has become an extreme threat on our roads. A handful of these phones are smart phones, and not only are people texting or making phone calls, but they are also emailing, surfing their Facebook and posting pictures on Instagram.
Somehow somewhere along the line, society created this crazy unwritten rule that everyone is expected to balance what they are doing more now than ever before. Anybody who has driven a car knows it only takes an instant or two to become distracted. It happens all of the time, even just letting your eyes wander to a billboard for a good cause can lead you to swerve into another lane. Then suddenly you’ve got a very loud and long honking of a horn behind you and an angry voice screaming out their window, “pick a lane!”
A distraction like that maybe isn’t always your fault, sometimes perhaps you really can’t control where your eyes go, but purposely using a cell phone is where I have no remorse. Using a cell phone includes physical contact, audible distraction and basically all of your attention. Although most of the time such distractions don’t lead to any problems, they can cause an accident, resulting in a fender bender, injury or even fatality to yourself or to someone else. By you even just picking up your cellphone, you’re toying with the fate of yourself and those around you.
This is all common sense. The more attention your distraction requires, the more at risk you are to drive to destruction.
If you must answer a text message or read what your arch enemy has just tweeted, seriously pull over your car and do what you need to do, otherwise just wait until you reach your destination.
After I graduated high school, one of my friends, who was a constant texter while driving, slipped up on his “profession” and crashed into a gaurdrail going about 70 mph. Luckily he escaped with minor injury, but his Kia Optima didn’t. The infamous text message he was sending was, “hi” in a reply to a, “hey.”
Ironically enough that text message was being sent to the person he was going to see. That couldn’t wait? A two letter word to the person you were driving to is certainly not worth it to risk your life and everyones life around you.
Distracted driving is an alarming epidemic on our roadways and we need to stop it. Share this message, make your voice heard and help develop safer roads for everyone.
The proper first step is to change our own attitudes and even more importantly drive our own behaviors, no pun intended.
I’m not saying cellphones should be totally banned from within your car – but do not touch them while in motion, it really is as simple as that.