Is it worth it?

By Ally Smith
Five seconds. Four, three, two, one. You are now sitting in your car, staring at your steering wheel, lifeless but not dead wondering what went wrong, screaming for help but nothing seems to be coming out, trying to move but feeling as though your body has been taken from you. The only word you can seem to utter is “why.”
There are 1.6 million crashes resulted by distracted driving in a single year. 330,000 is the number of injuries that occur in a year because of distracted driving, and one out of every four car accidents is caused by distracted driving.
So why? If we as drivers know and are aware of these horrific statistics, why do we do it? Is it the temptation of what's happening on social media? Or the simple “where are you?” text message that illuminates on the screen of your phone. We are all living in a society run by electronics, so much that they are now becoming the poster image for life or death and determining what the rest of our life looks like.
So is it worth it? Is one text really worth a life of self-pity and the constant question of what if?
Because the same five seconds it takes you to look at your phone screen are the same five seconds it takes to take yours, or someone else's innocent life.
So the next time you look down at your phone while behind the wheel, think about how that child could grow up without a mother, how that man will now grow old without his beloved wife, and how those parents will have to see the life that was once in their daughter’s eyes, gone.

Editor's note: Journalism students at Delaware Valley High School, like junior Ally Smith, are producing editorials and editorial cartoons to raise awareness of a dangerous practice injuring hundreds of thousands every year — distracted driving.