Hi I am Kayla and I am 18 years old. I am a teen who loves to have fun and be wild. I love helping others and always thinking of ways to help the community. Being wild can lead me to getting into some trouble sometimes. This is my blog, I hope you listen and stay tuned while I share my own thoughts and stories about the dangers of driving.
Welcome to my blog, I am a teen that is trying to make a difference in life and help teens and adults about the dangers in driving. We hope to inform and share our thoughts with all of you. We also hope to show how their decisions can affect them for a long time. Today’s topic is about texting and driving and how it can change your life and someone else’s within seconds. Throughout this blog we want people to think about their actions before they do something that could affect them for the rest of their life. We hope you listen and take everything to heart. We hope to start a discussion between others about how there is a danger in driving that many people don’t talk about.
Texting and Driving has become the center of most crashes. With over 1.6 million crashes each year and 390,000 occur each year from those crashes caused by drivers that are texting while driving. 1 out of 4 accidents are in the United States. Teens are more likely to get into a crash or have a near crash due to being on their phones, then adults are too.Many studies that have recently been done shows that texting and driving can be more dangerous the drinking and driving. Drunk driving can cause up to 10,000 fatalities a year, where texting and driving can lead up to 3,500 car accident deaths each year. This Blog is to inform new and older drivers the coast of texting and driving. You will get to read about why you should stop and how it can affect you and others in the long run.
I am Kayla, a normal 18 year old. I was with a friend driving home from a fast food restaurant and was struck at a stop light by a driver going 50mp when the speed limit was only 35mp. The driver was suspected to be texting and not paying attention to the traffic in front of him. The driver claims he came off the interstate and he saw the red light turn green and stepped on the gas. This driver took all the fault in this crash, he denied ever being on his phone. With this careless driver not paying attention. My car was declared totaled by the insurance company. The cost to fix my car would not have been worth the time or money. I put all the money I had from the car being totaled and got a new car. I pay the payment and insurance on this car. I was very upset about what happened and how the driver got away with more than he should have.
My question is how can you not see cars that are in front of you? How can you lie to the cops that you were going the speed limit, because he obviously was not with how much damage the car had. My friend who will remain anonymous, hurt her knee to the point the ER doctor thought it was broken, she was lucky in this crash, and I am grateful for that. I however now have lower back pain I will probably have to deal with the rest of my life, I got horrible whiplash and bruises from my seat belt and my hands from hitting the steering wheel. I had to go to physical therapy for a while and was never really healed from what happend. If the driver was paying attention this would have never happened and I would not be afraid to get into my car or anyone else’s car for that matter and have to think will I/we be in yet another car accident. I can honestly say I hate driving and it scares me to death. That may seem over dramatic, but if you got in a car accident would you want to drive right after? I can’t say this enough to put your damn phones down and pay attention, because you may not be so lucky the next time you pick up that phone and look at it. Nothing is important when someone texts you, just for you to make that stupied decision and maybe get killed or you killing someone else.
I want you to think while you still read this how would you and your family feel if you killed someone because you were on your phone? I can answer that you would feel like complete crap and your family would be pretty disappointed in you for making such a stupied decision. Your life ruined you would definitely be facing jail time because you killed someone. You would also get some more charges like endangering others, texting, probably speeding or going away under the speed limit. With all that being said is it still worth it to text and drive. If you said yes you are not very smart and shouldn’t have a license at all. Option two is you are just a punk teen that only cares about himself and thinks it’s funny and it will never happen to you. Well….. My friend I hope you get a rude awakening that ends with that jail cell locking you in for years and having to do time.
Texting and driving is killing many teens lives. We now have social media and smartphones to distract us while driving. What is it worth to you, to lose your life or put others lives in danger, just so you can check a snapchat, text message or just in general a notification. Our society is so addicted to not just smartphones but any device. We are now putting our children in front of a screen, instead of them playing outside and having playdates. Their faces are shoved in a screen so parents don’t have to really entertain or for that fact spend time with them. That is sad. Teens/kids faces are shoved into their devices, most teens cant even go 10 minutes without checking to see what notifications they have. In the real world when they get a job, most likely they will get fired. Bosses don’t care who texted or snapchatted you, you are there to work for them and do what you need to do.
Teens are not the only ones to blame adults text and drive. They cause accidents too. Parents are role models to us. We see them doing something we think, “well it’s ok our parents do it nothing will happen to us”. No one can say it won’t happen to them, I thought I would never be in a car accident until I was hit. We take life for granted everyday. Everytime you get behind that wheel you are driving a death machine and many teens don’t understand that which is very scary and sad. Teens when they get their license they become very naive and don’t think about what can happen when they get distracted. You can be the safest driver and still get distracted with the littlest things. This is why when you get your license you are supposed to wait 6 months before having anyone in the car.
I am also a teen who has been guilty of being on my phone and texting. Which is wrong and I should never have my phone in my hand. Everyone makes mistakes/ bad decisions, but you should never make a mistake more than once, because you may not be so lucky the next time you decide to look at your phone. I get distracted but there comes a point to where you should never be on your phone. If a notification is so important to you and it can’t wait. You should pull over to the side of the road where it is safe and answer it. If you are with a friend have them answer the message or have your parenting a sibling do it or any passenger you have with you that knows how a cell phone works. Nothing should be more important than you driving and not getting distracted while driving.
What many people don’t realize is that, they can talk about texting while driving and how they won’t do it and that’s great you can talk about it. That’s not enough though you have to show and prove people that you don’t need your phone behind the wheel. It’s all about action and being that role model to someone else. Everytime you get behind the wheel think about how your life could be over in the split of a second when you choose to look down at your phone. As a teenager I understand how hard it is to not look at your phone when you see that notification come up. I catch myself looking at my phone. Which is a bad thing to do, I normally give the phone to a friend that is with me and they will tell me what someone said, that way i am not looking at my phone.
People will always have a different opinion than me and that is ok because I know if I can get a teenager or an adult to stop looking at their phone while they are driving, then that can lead to someone else’s life not being endangered. I want to help others know that when they choose to look at their phone they have already decided to put them and possibly someone else’s life in danger.
We have chosen to make a blog because I can share and help people understand the dangers of driving, weather that be texting,drinking, high ect. This is where Kenzie and I can share our experiences and ways that can help you to deal with these types of situations you or others may get themselves into one day. This blog was all about texting and driving and how it really can change your life in a split second. We shared a little bit of my story with it. We want others to learn from what We went through and to not text and drive.
We hope you have taken into consideration what texting and driving can do to you and your family and I hope you will never have to experience that and you become a smarter driver within your community. We hope by reading this first blog of ours you now understand the dangers of texting and driving, and will think twice about doing it. We want you as the readers to talk about how texting may have affected your life or someone else’s that you know. Our blog about texting and driving was hard to come up with the words to type because of how this topic can become emotional, and how it is a difficult thing to talk about. This blog is to help you start those conversations with others. If you or someone you know is texting while driving please stop and tell them the dangers they are putting themselves and others in. A life can be over in a second, put the phone down it can wait.
Safe Driving 