As part of our distracted driving awareness campaign, AAA Carolinas is sponsoring an essay contest for the students of Ridge View High School.Your essay should answer the following question: How can we change the attitude and behavior concerning texting while driving, especially among teenagers?
A car carrying a group of teens is in the mass of the cars that are along the interstate during rush hour. The driver feels her phone vibrate, and takes her hands off the wheel to pull it out and check it. Her eyes drift away from the road for only a few seconds, but that’s all it took. The car swerves into the next lane, hitting a car carrying a child and their parents. IIt only takes a second for this to happen.
It is an early morning as students come into the classroom, a single screen turned on. The room goes dark as the video begins to play. In the film, it is a visual representation of what the teacher reiterated from the lessons, shows the ugly and saddening tale of a death of a group of teenagers when they were involved in a deadly accident due to texting.
It begins at the beginning of their final journey, as they were leaving their home. A car full of teens, simply heading to the movies for the premier of the newest horror movie. They were going through an intersection, as the driver heard his phone go off with a chime. A text message. He dug through his pockets, his eyes diverted from the road as he looked for it. As he read the single text message, his eyes continued to be glued to the screen, but the road was neglected. A minute passed before he looked back up and that was the moment that headlights flooded into the car. It was too late to fix the situation as the two vehicles collided with the other. The video ends with a far shot of the accident.
“This is what can happen every single one of you, if you allow yourself to answer a simple text message,” came the instructor’s voice. “This can happen to you, so do not choose to become a statistic.”
This is how we can change the attitude of texting while driving, show them real life footage and pictures of these accidents. The physical evidence of what a simple thing like texting can do to ruin the lives of many people. It is a use of pathos as they try to make them understand that it is never okay to send or read a text message while operating a motor vehicle.Points:
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A great piece of writing!
I definitely agree with the points your making here. I once saw a similar film of a group of teenage girls involved in a texting whilst driving accident. However, as opposed to the film ending with the crash and all in the car losing their lives, this film showed the driver surviving the crash and the torment she faced afterwards. It showed the parents of the dead passengers, relatives of the young family that they hit and the kind of judgement the surviving driver faced from the public. It also showed her being sent to prison as a result of the accident.
That one hard-hitting video can ultimately be the difference between life and death, I certainly wont do anything of the sort after watching that!
I think you captured the importance and seriousness of such an issue whilst keeping your reader enaged and interested to learn more about the points you were making.
A great, thought provoking essay
Faithless
Hey, I really liked this. You definitely answered the prompt while reminding me, the reader, the risks of texting while driving. The way you write provides a really meaningful visual regarding the gruesome topic you're exploiting. Great work, really!
I might consider changing "but that’s all it took" in the first paragraph to "but that's all it takes" since you've already written everything else in present tense, but other than that, well written!
Thanks for the read.
-Briggsy
Hmm, a great representation of trying to address a never ending problem in America. What I don't really like is how this essay only talks about how teens text and drive and not about how adults do it too. I know the prompt says espically amoung teeagers, but it doesn't say it is supposed to only speak about that specific age group. Not a serious issue, its just my opinion.
As far as the rest of this essay is concerned it is not flawed at all. It uses facts and employs the art of short, sweet scenarios. A+ for you, haha!
~The dark one