TWO YEARS LATER

It has been two years since I got hit by a car going 40 mph while walking across the street as an 18 year old girl glanced down at her phone instead of paying attention to the road. Sometimes it seems like the crash happened yesterday and other times it feels like it was a lifetime ago. The bottom line is that the crash that shattered my tibia and broke my pelvis in 4 places was 100% preventable, if the girl had not been looking at her phone. People think they can drive safely and look at their phone, but they can’t.  

10 people die and over 1000 people are injured every day in distracted driving car crashes and these numbers are low due to underreporting of distracted driving crashes. According to the National Safety Council someone is injured every 7 seconds in a car crash. That means that in the time it has taken you to read this, there were multiple crashes in the United States with injuries and fatalities. I’m writing today to share my story in hopes that you will think twice about picking up your phone while driving the next time you are in your car. This will help saves lives and it could be yours or someone you love.

Experts are calling distracted driving “a public health crisis”. A Newsweek article states that about half of all parents use their phone when driving with their children in the car. Parents are endangering their children and others and we have to do better.

Parents need to start modeling good phone behavior in the car, especially when they are driving with their children in the car. Let’s teach the next generation of children that it is not ok to use your phone in the car while driving, so as they become driver’s they pick up the good driving behavior of their parents.

According to research done at Virginia Tech's Transportation Institute, sending or receiving a text takes a driver’s eyes from the road for an average of 4.6 seconds, the equivalent-at 55 mph-of driving the length of an entire football field, blindfolded. Close your eyes and imagine what it would be like to drive with your eyes closed for five seconds. Common sense dictates that it is not safe. So why do we do it?

When I think back to the day of the crash, I am grateful to have survived the crash, as 9 out of 10 pedestrians die in a crash like mine. I had severe injuries, spent 5 days in the ICU, 1 week in the hospital and 1 week in a rehab center. I was non-weightbearing for 12 weeks and slept in my living room for 6 weeks in a hospital bed. I went to physical therapy 3 times a week for 10 months and still have nerve damage in my leg. Things were really difficult to say the least. People ask me if I am back to normal yet, but the reality of it is, I won’t ever be the same. I have a whole new normal since the crash. I know first-hand how life can change in a matter of seconds at the hands of a distracted driver.   

The life you save may be your own or that of a loved one; so please, put your phone down when you drive and don’t drive distracted.