This time of year, everyone’s thoughts are occupied with summer plans.
When to vacation? Where to visit? What to bring? Who to call to house sit? Where’s the money coming from? And, if you haven’t already scheduled time off from work, there’s the thought over whether or not you’ll be able to even get a week off over the next three months. There’s also the worries about transporting kids to games. Your daughter’s playing baseball, and some of her games conflict with your son’s soccer games. Not to mention, there’s dance, and Boy Scouts. Who can you carpool with and who else do you have to make arrangements with. Pick up your smartphone and take to Facebook. Maybe someone is looking for help, too.
Now, stop.
Hopefully you’re not picking up that phone while driving. Please don’t. Our papers have been full of automobile accidents the past several weeks. Though we can’t speculate behind the cause of any of them at this point, we do know distracted driving is one of the leading causes of accidents today. Simply consuming our conscious thoughts with plans or daydreams for the summer is distracting enough that it could cause us to miss our turn, or a stop sign. Factor in a brief, “oh, it’s a text,” into our driving routine and you have a situation that will cause an accident.
It will cause an accident.
Maybe it hasn’t happened to you, yet. Maybe it won’t happen the next time. But, it will happen.
We at The Spotlight hope that all of our readers practice safe driving this summer, so that we all can get to the places we daydream about, whether that be the Cape or back home to our families. Our job to provide you the news reminds us all too well that accidents are never planned, and can happen to the best of people, at the worst of times.
If you care to share with us, and your fellow readers, your experience with distracted driving, please send a letter to the editor at 341 Delaware Ave., Delmar, NY 12054 or by email at [email protected]
