Driving is an activity that embodies a lot of combined focus, caution, awareness, and attention to ensure the safety of people in the car, and other living things outside of the vehicle. Many people take safety for granted and easily compromise their lives to use their phones while driving because it is either believed they know what they are doing, or do not expect anything in their environment to change suddenly. However, no matter how confident you are while driving and using your phone, you cannot predict what will happen and any second that you are looking at your phone, is a second that your eyes are not on the road in front of you, which means you don’t know what’s happening. You might as well be blindfolded because even if you glance back and forth quickly, your attention isn’t there and you are leaving yourself and others vulnerable to recklessness and potential danger.

It should not have to take a traumatic experience to know that there are huge, enormous risks to driving with a distraction, especially one as trivial as a cellphone. You can tweet, email, text, Instagram, Facebook, Snapchat, photograph and search things later. What’ is important is you and your safety and everyone else’s. If someone uses their phone in the presence of others in the car that is basically saying that the driver does not care about the safety of others or themselves and that is a concern. If someone uses his or her phone period that is a danger that simply shouldn’t have to be debatable. The fear of the unknown is scary and the gamble isn’t worth what could happen if driving responsibly isn’t taken seriously.

Not any amount of experience can prepare you for the unknown future of what you could look back up to after sending that text. Driving isn’t a time to multitask with technology. Driving already encompasses a lot of potential qualities that can influence the driver like weather, traffic, pedestrians, other driver’s and their choices, etc. using your phone while driving means that for those moments, you do not have control. You are handing over your attention to a small, distracting piece of technology and as nice as it would be to still have control over the car because you think you can still brake, your perception of the road is erased because once you look away, anything can happen, and you are unprepared. It should be non-negotiable. Lives are non-negotiable; safety should not be optional. We have let phones replace a lot of parts in our lives, but they should not be preventing safe driving.