The Wake Up Call...

I started spinning around and around in every direction uncontrollably. I thought to myself, I'm dead!

I was cruising down the street, it had just started to slightly rain. What started as a drizzle, very quickly turned into a storming down pour. I remember this day vividly, even more so now than ever before. I could hear the rumble of my Muscle Car's engine mixed with heavy rapid taps of the rain against my window. The sound drowned out the loud traffic and commotion on the other side of the glass. I always felt on top of the world when I was behind the wheel of my car. 

I felt like the control was in my hands, she was a real looker. A black cherry maroon T-Top 1978 Chevy Monte Carlo, all custom interior, 383 Stroker engine, dual exhaust pipes and one of the fastest cars on the streets of Queens, New York City. Needless to say everything about her was easy on the eyes.

When I drive, I usually have one hand firmly gripping the steering wheel and the other resting on the shifter. Today that wouldn't be the case, instead in that hand was my cellphone. See, I was waiting for a very important text on where to pick up my 4 year old son from his mother. I told myself I wouldn't respond to any text messages while driving unless it was from them. I knew I had a dangerous habit of multi-tasking while driving, so I tried ways to be proactive against this. I would put my phone in the backseat or put whatever I wanted to hear on the radio beforehand and try not to change it while driving, which seemed nearly impossible, so many distractions... What seemed even more impossible to ignore was hearing the sound Swoosh! That sound meant I had a new text message. It seemed nearly painful to not check to see who it was from and respond immediately.

Swoosh!

There went the sound. I had to look. I had to check it, I had been waiting for this important text. I didn't have the self-discipline to pull over, nor did I feel like I had the time. To my surprise, it wasn't the text I was expecting, it was somebody else. I told myself, "put down the phone stupid!” Instead of following the advice of smart me, stupid me started writing a text. One word, then three words, then full on sentences.

I was texting at the speed of light because I had to get back to what was more important, which was driving. My car at this point was driving itself at 45-50 mph down the street in the pouring rain. Three seconds, then five seconds passed, done! As my eyes went back up to the windshield ahead, my heart jumped out of my chest. I swerved completely to the left to dodge the car that was approaching me so quickly. It seemed as if the car was thrown at me by some supernatural force. I started spinning around and around in every direction uncontrollably. I thought to myself, I'm dead! My car went up on a median and wrapped snug around a pole on the left side of the road. Shattered Glass from the driver side window spayed into my face like it came out of a spray bottle. Thats when everything went black. I guess the afterlife smells like high octane gasoline. I don't think I was unconscious for long, a few seconds maybe, then I re-entered the atmosphere with a heavy gasp for air. 

I'm not dead? And the afterlife doesn't smell like gasoline? Nope! instead it was my car that reeked of the fumes. I looked across the street, and through the blur in my eyes, I could see two people running towards me screaming, "Get him out of there! Get him out of there! The car is spilling gas everywhere!" As two guys yanked my door open I jumped out into the middle of the street. I stood there looking around as if I was dropped into some foreign environment. Luckily, even though there was a gas leak, no explosion took place behind me as I walked away, like this was some action film. The reality was, I was still dazed from the impact. My head was throbbing with the strength of 10 migraines. When my car hit the pole, my head hit the side window and then the pole as well.

This would be the day I forever remembered as the luckiest and worse day of my life. I didn't require medical attention and I survived another text and drive wreckage. I am somewhere between the world’s fastest texter, one of the luckiest men alive and a cat. My car on the other hand wasn't so lucky. It would never see the streets again, it ended up in the shape of a banana, totaled completely! I was grateful to have survived two dangerous crashes, both from texting and driving. This was the second one...

I came to a serious realization that I may not be fortunate enough to survive a third. Almost dying didn't matter, the promise that I made to myself to not do it eventually faded like old black jeans. I would go on to continue texting and driving and flirting with death at the gamble of my life for some time after this accident.

Plain out stupid! Not until recent years did I take the blood in blood out oath to never interact with my phone while behind the wheel again. Sometimes I power down my phone when driving, that is how bad I had become attached to my device.

May it be business or a personal text, answering a quick email, checking social media outlets, a music streaming app, or perhaps a selfie while driving, The distractions in the phone keeps us needing it like a drug, even if we are doing something as important as driving. Since the time I survived my close encounters, many lives have been lost due to texting while driving. Even precious babies have been killed... This was the wake up call for me which should have come much sooner. You will often witness what appears to be a drunk driver on the freeway, swerving in and out of traffic lanes. When you approach them, you will find them looking down at their phones, most likely texting. Having laws in 46 states banning texting and driving hasn’t helped much.