Are You In Danger?

Daily writing prompt

What’s something you believe everyone should know.

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I will restate something we already know, with a few quick scenarios.

1. I watched the automobile to my left begin to drift into my lane while in heavy traffic. I looked over to observe the operator texting with her head bent over her phone.
2. The policeman asked, what happened? The operator said to him, “it’s totally my fault. I was looking at my phone and rear-ended the car in front of me stopped at the traffic light.”
3. Sandra wrinkled her nose when we passed the gentleman enjoying his cigarette, passing close by on the street. “I tried it.” I said “It’s not good for you.” I added. She smiled with a little grin and nodded. “They cause cancer, says so right on the box!”

The above are three true stories. The first two occurred just last week, the last some time ago. The first I witnessed, the second injured a friend waiting at an intersection a few days later. The evidence has been clear for years, yet we still do it. Drivers who operate their motor vehicles while using their phones are 6 times more likely to have a motor vehicle accident. Unlike cigarettes, the harm extends beyond your own health. The danger to others is very real.

I’m on the road for work a great deal. It is depressing and maddening to see the ever present use of cell phones that takes place daily on the road. How many did you see last week. More importantly were you one of them?

We already know:

1. It’s not multitasking. A five second text is equal to traveling the length of a sports field with one’s eyes closed.
2. The texts are simply not that important. There’s nothing an operator can do from the driver’s seat to solve someone else’s problem.
3. You could kill someone else, or yourself. Is your call worth your life, or someone else?
4. Professional race car drivers don’t text during races. They know concentration is required to operate a moving vehicle, where situations change in an instant. Are we better drivers than the pros on the race tracks?
5. Wait until you get home, or pull over and give the caller the full attention they deserve.
6. Save a life, if even just your own. Please, lift up your head and LIVE.