There, but for the grace of God, go I

I worry about two things when it comes to my children – a car hitting them and a predator snatching them. These two things keep me awake at night, more so than teenage pregnancy or drugs, or a whole host of other pitfalls and obstacles that I hope they never face. As a mother, thinking about these things can become an obsession even though you take all the precautions in the world to avoid the boogeyman.

It never crossed my mind that I could be the boogeyman to some other family. I’ve just been living my life, carrying on, doing what I do, protecting my own. But I was an accident waiting to happen.

DWT – driving while texting – is an acronym that is catching on and gathering speed. Many states have already made it a crime, but not my state. Not yet. In Florida I can still legally fiddle with my cell phone as I drive around town, past husbands and wives, mothers and fathers. Past their children.

I recently wrote an article for a client about the dangers of texting in the car. I learned a few things, beyond the obvious point that it’s a bad idea. Studies show that texting is more dangerous than being wasted when you’re barreling down the road toward somebody’s loved one. And a Bluetooth or hands-free setup doesn’t make it safe to talk and drive. Just talking on the phone to someone not in the car with you makes the brain all wonky. You can zone out and look away from the road even as you think, Oh, hai! Look at me expertly driving my car while talking on the phone. I can handle it. Here’s a news flash. No one can handle it.

I saw last week’s Oprah episode about texting while driving. Perhaps you did too. The first segment was about a little girl who was hit head-on and killed while riding her bike home from school, fifteen pedals from her driveway, by a mom in an SUV who was fiddling with her phone. The woman was sorry at the scene. So, so sorry. As paramedics cut off the little girl’s clothes as she lay next to her crumpled bike and her parents watched a horror movie from a distance, she was so sorry.

Another story from that episode was a young man who killed two men, husbands and fathers both, because he was texting in the car. Texting for miles, he said, from the minute he got behind the wheel. No biggie. He had been texting in the car since he got his license. Everyone he knew at school texted in their car.

Here’s the thing. I could be that kid. I could be that SUV mom. I have been a distracted driver for years, probably since I got my first job and my first cell phone, an enormous Motorola flip phone. Two decades of distracted driving.

I take and make calls in the car. Ever since I got my shiny, shiny iPhone I sometimes look at emails at a stop light. I might look over to see what my opponent just played in Words with Friends. I don’t text and drive, but I have probably sent a tweet waiting for the light to change. I am so grateful I never caused an accident. So, so grateful.

I am finally putting an end to my lucky streak. I’ll be keeping my iPhone in my purse from now on. I will pull over if I need to make a call. As Oprah would say, When you know better, you do better.

Tagged as: driving while texting, DWT, texting