Death and Distracted Driving Accidents

Sadly, some of the cremation services in Glade Hill, VA will be for people who are killed in distracted driving accidents. You may not realize how common distracted driving is and that you may also, at times, be a distracted driver. 

Distracted driving is defined as doing anything that takes your mind and attention off your driving and the road. As technology has spread its tentacles into every corner of our lives, there are no end to the number of distractions that it can cause while you are driving. 

Your smartphone alerts you that you have a new text message. You look down quickly, taking your eyes off the road, to see who it’s from and what they have to say. You look back up quickly and find that traffic in front of you has stopped and you’re going too fast to slow down in time not to hit anyone. 

You brake hard and jerk the steering wheel to the right to avoid a collision. You may or may not avoid hitting anyone else, but the momentum of your car sends it flying like a projectile off the road. There may be trees. There may be power poles. There may be water. There may be steep drop-offs. 

You may be dead after the impact, even if you took your eyes off the road for just a few seconds. 

You read about these kinds of accidents every day, and many of them involve young people, for whom technology is an appendage. They never consider that a vehicle that weighs between 4000 and 6000 pounds can be dangerous to themselves and to others. They don’t think twice about trying to drive and stay engaged with their technology. 

Many lives are being lost to distracted driving because humans weren’t designed to multitask. Although we live in a society that prides itself on its ability to multitask, when you dig deeper into how well we actually multitask, the results are disappointing. 

Multitasking creates a distraction mindset and that carries over to activities, such as driving, where not multitasking and not being distracted is paramount to driving safely and saving lives. Most people simply don’t realize how a second or two of distracted driving can be deadly and cost many people their lives. 

In Matt Richtel’s book, A Deadly Wandering, our growing propensity for distraction – and distracted driving specifically – is examined. Richtel’s book begins with the story of a 19-year-old young man who was furiously texting his girlfriend while he was driving, early in the morning on an early autumn day near Salt Lake City, Utah. 

Unknowingly, while looking down and sending a text, the young driver crossed over into the lane of oncoming traffic. His vehicle slammed into the vehicle of two rocket scientists who were headed into work. 

The young man was unharmed in the accident and had no recollection of how it happened or what he was doing when the accident occurred. The two rocket scientists were killed on impact. The Utah state trooper who got to the scene first said, “the collision was so violent it popped out the passenger’s eyeballs.” 

The young man was subsequently charged with negligent homicide and served time in prison. He was so remorseful and regretful that his distracted driving had caused the deaths of two people and had left their bereft families with the aftermath of the senseless losses they experienced that he devoted his life to warning young people about the deadly effects that distracted driving can have. 

For information about cremation services in Glade Hill, VA, our caring and knowledgeable staff at Conner-Bowman Funeral Home & Crematory can assist you.