The numbers of it

Imagine it is a Friday afternoon and you are riding in the car. Talking with others, heading someplace you’ve been waiting to go all day. Then it happens. You hear a scream, and then it hits you. The car goes flying forward, you sit there in shock.

We have all heard the lectures repeatedly about drinking and driving along with texting while driving. We hear it especially when we are first learning to drive. It is ingrained into our brains at a young age. We listen to this, but often do not think the bad outcomes could happen to us. Many people know someone who has been effected by some sort of distracted driving.

By the time, I got out of the car the man that hit us was stumbling towards us attempting to apologize. Then he fell, if you got close enough you could smell the alcohol on him. I was in shock; did we just get hit by a drunk driver?

Now in this case luckily no one was injured. But this is not always the case, and often it ends much, much worse. Since this is a topic that hits very close to home for me, I wanted to share with you all some of the statistics that come from distracted driving.

51

Every 51 minutes in America someone is killed in a drunk driving crash. This is roughly 27 people every single day.

120

Every 120 seconds someone is injured in a drunk driving incident.

9,878

9,878 people were victims of a drunk driver.

4

You are 4X more likely to crash while texting and driving.

5

Five is the minimum number of seconds you take your eyes off the road to send a text.

I can only hope that these numbers effect you as much as they have affected me. Whether you can relate to this or not I want you to know that an incident like this sticks with you for the rest of your life. So, next time you go out and drink, please do not drive, do not add to these statistics. Likewise, with texting and driving, just do not do it. Be the one to make a change and possibly save some lives.