Joint Base San Antonio-Fort Sam Houston, TX –
Distracted driving has become the number one cause of fatal
car accidents and pedestrian deaths due to motor vehicles in the United States.
In 2014, 4,223 pedestrians in the United States were killed
by vehicles, with 487 of those in Texas.
Here is my story about how distracted driving affected me.
Back in 1997, I was in high school and life was going great.
I had a pretty girlfriend, lots of good buddies to hang out with and a
wonderful 1988 Chevy S-10 pickup truck. I loved that truck.
My uncle worked for the local cable television company and
they would auction off their old inventory every year.
One Saturday afternoon, my dad, uncle and I went and
purchased two S-10s. Our intent was to combine them into one great looking and
running vehicle. It took us about a month to get the trucks taken apart and put
back together. Finally, after a lot of hard work, I had my beautiful S-10.
Two months go by and my friend George and I are hanging out
at his place playing video games, when hunger strikes. We ventured out to the
local pizza place.
It was raining and overcast, but we got in and out of the
store quickly and started driving back. We didn’t have time to wait; that pizza
was so enticing that I had to get a slice of it right away.
There I was, slice of pizza in one hand and steering wheel
in the other; on a rainy day heading through the busy streets of Cleveland. I
didn’t like the song playing on the radio, so I went to put in a CD.
George yelled, “STOP!” An F-350 had slammed on its brakes in
front of me.
In my current state of pizza and CD-induced distracted haze,
I was unable to react with enough time to stop. We rear-ended the F-350; the
trailer hitch went through my engine block and my beautiful truck was totaled.
The F-350 had stopped abruptly to avoid running over a child
playing in the street. I was lucky. Yes, I destroyed my beautiful truck, but I
am happy that I had that accident. If that truck had not been there that day, I
would have killed that child.
All of this could have been avoided if I had not been
driving while distracted. Thankfully, that didn’t happen, but it happens all
too often on our roads.
In 2014, more than 3,500 people died on Texas roads. There
were 100,825 traffic crashes during this time and 468 of the fatalities have
been attributed to distracted driving. The big picture here is that nothing
should be more important, while behind the wheel, than driving.
As pedestrians and parents of small pedestrians, we need to
also keep in mind the dangers of distracted drivers and roadways. Here is where
the pedestrian numbers come into play.
In San Antonio alone, 54 pedestrians were hit and killed by
motor vehicles in the past year. Over the past six years, 135
pedestrian-vs.-motor-vehicle mishaps have been recorded in the Air Force mishap
database. Of those, 58 were on duty, 77 were off duty and 18 were fatal. Here
at Joint Base San Antonio, we have had eight pedestrians hit by motor vehicles
recorded.
While crossing streets, running, jogging, biking or walking
in and around roadways, be mindful of traffic. Wear reflective clothing at
low-light times, don’t wear headphones around traffic and make sure that
oncoming traffic is aware of you and reacts to you when crossing a street.
Do not blindly enter a roadway just because you are in a
crosswalk. In 10 years of investigating accidents, in every
pedestrian-vs.-motor-vehicle accident I have investigated, the pedestrian was
in a crosswalk. This year, we have already had two such accidents on
JBSA-Lackland.
Be careful out there. Pay attention while driving and be
mindful of traffic when you are on the road.