GIRL HAS WAKE UP CALL
The following was posted as a comment to the “Roll Over on Whitney Road” story by 16 year old Cally Andel; after reading it I thought it was better posted here for everyone to read.
I live on Whitney Rd and I’m 16yrs. old myself. Just the other night around say midnight I was on my way home. I was texting on my phone with other things on my mind and not paying any attention. Of course I’m doing this all the time, and find myself swerving all over the road. However this night at the last second in the same spot where the accident occurred I caught myself riding off the road on the left hand side and jerked it back on and spun out.
I’ve been in a few accidents already but this time I took a minute to realize how fast things can happen and threw my phone down. For some reason it made me even want to put my seatbelt on. With my house a few houses down I drove slowly home. I got out and looked at my car, I even told my mom about it.
Yesterday in the hot sunny weather my mom and I were sitting in the pool. We kept hearing tons of sirens and noticed they were coming down our road. I thought man very rarely do sirens go down our road. Intrigued I jumped up grabbed my keys and by the time I got to the end of my driveway I could see they were right there. Curiously I drove down there and saw a red truck flipped over and tree branches on the road. That very minute I looked around and realized two nights ago in that very same spot I almost crashed. I sat back in my seat and just stared for a minute. As more and more sirens flooded my way I was blocked in. I looked in my rearview mirror and noticed a man behind me. I called my mom and explained the scene and in the back of my mind thinking that could have been me.
It took a while to get the person out. And that whole time it just made me think. I took a picture on my phone and sent it to my mom. The first thing she said is "were they young?" It seems more and more teens are getting killed or hurt. I used to tell myself I knew how to drive and felt invincible, but with a few scares of texting on my phone is really making me cautious. Later on I drove back down there. I followed the tracks of the trucks tires with my eyes on the road and again I saw my tires riding that path two nights ago. I closed my eyes and thought thank you for this warning and thank you for watching over me.
I live on Whitney Rd and I’m 16yrs. old myself. Just the other night around say midnight I was on my way home. I was texting on my phone with other things on my mind and not paying any attention. Of course I’m doing this all the time, and find myself swerving all over the road. However this night at the last second in the same spot where the accident occurred I caught myself riding off the road on the left hand side and jerked it back on and spun out.I’ve been in a few accidents already but this time I took a minute to realize how fast things can happen and threw my phone down. For some reason it made me even want to put my seatbelt on. With my house a few houses down I drove slowly home. I got out and looked at my car, I even told my mom about it.
Yesterday in the hot sunny weather my mom and I were sitting in the pool. We kept hearing tons of sirens and noticed they were coming down our road. I thought man very rarely do sirens go down our road. Intrigued I jumped up grabbed my keys and by the time I got to the end of my driveway I could see they were right there. Curiously I drove down there and saw a red truck flipped over and tree branches on the road. That very minute I looked around and realized two nights ago in that very same spot I almost crashed. I sat back in my seat and just stared for a minute. As more and more sirens flooded my way I was blocked in. I looked in my rearview mirror and noticed a man behind me. I called my mom and explained the scene and in the back of my mind thinking that could have been me.
It took a while to get the person out. And that whole time it just made me think. I took a picture on my phone and sent it to my mom. The first thing she said is "were they young?" It seems more and more teens are getting killed or hurt. I used to tell myself I knew how to drive and felt invincible, but with a few scares of texting on my phone is really making me cautious. Later on I drove back down there. I followed the tracks of the trucks tires with my eyes on the road and again I saw my tires riding that path two nights ago. I closed my eyes and thought thank you for this warning and thank you for watching over me.
Cally Andel
posted by TMC NEWS at 4:36 PM
4 Comments:
Well im glad nothing happend to her but the guy in the truck wasent so lucky. I honestly catch myself texting messing with the radio way to much and speeding really bad. We all just need to relize how unsafe these country roads are and treat them with caution and drive safly and keep all the distractions out.
That was a great comment and thanks tmc for posting that.
you may have made people open there eyes and see the danger.
It sounds as though Cally learned her lesson before she learned it the hard way. I hope more drivers her age learn the same lesson.
I would like to add however, it was not a good idea to drive to a scene as she did. As she stated she got blocked in. I don't know if by more emergency vehicles arriving, other curious onlookers or just normal traffic coming down the road. It is never a good idea to add to the congestion and confusion on an accident scene. As the Fire Department is volunteer we do have personnel responding in personal vehicles to scenes at times and additional unnecessary traffic is a hinderance.
As for the comment from anonymous "...I honestly catch myself texting messing with the radio way to much and speeding really bad. We all just need to relize how unsafe these country roads are..."
"These country roads" aren't dangerous. No road or intersection is dangerous of itself. "They" are inanimate objects constructed of pavement. The first part I quoted from that comment is what makes driving on the road dangerous. In other words, drivers are dangerous, NOT the roads!
Great idea to bring this comment up to the front page. I have a 16 year old neice who has been driving for about 4 months now: 1 minor accident and 1 speeding citation. 4 months. She's very lucky that's all that happened.
You, probably more than any of us, see first hand the results. The message indeed does need to get out. Thanks.
Driving without distractions is dangerous in itself. Add in cell phones and loud stereos and air conditioners blowing with the windows up and you have an isolated space where you're not paying attention to much of anything. In my opinion, we have made our bed. We allow people to drive with cell phones. We allow our kids to have cell phones and sometimes even pay their bills. Talking on a cell phone is bad enough, but text messages take even more concentration.
Parents need to wake up a bit more. More and more parents are fostering the recipe for disaster. Who is hurt the most when a child is involved in an accident? Who is the most hurt when a child dies in a car? Those of us that have the most to lose need to realize that we must do EVERYTHING to protect what is the most valuable to us; our kids. The State of Ohio is trying to help. Passing laws about how many kids are in a car at the same time. Now it's time for parents to be parents again. Who cares if taking away text messages on your kids cell phone makes them "Uncool"? Better to be uncool then dead. As parents, we do have control over our children, we just need to exercise it.
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