Jonah's Jabs: Distracted driving woes

By Jonah Unger
Staff Writer

This weekend has been very eventful for me. So much so, that an occurrence happened, causing me to think somewhat deeply on a subject.

To offer perspective, I will give a brief summary of my weekend.

My weekend started off by recovering from a painful back injury. I have played numerous sports most of my life, including football, so I am used to the occasional injury.

After I felt well enough to continue my day-to-day activities, I decided to go see my nephew out of town. I had a nice time, regardless of feeling old when holding a baby with a bad back.

All was well – that was until my drive home.

I was entering the city of Lansing listening to music and zoning out, as usual. I was stopped at a red light, then within a blink of an eye a car rear ended me going at least 45 miles per hour. The driver didn’t even slow down.

I had so much adrenaline that I got out of my car to immediately get confrontational. I was absolutely flabbergasted at the thought of how someone could hit me going that fast while I was stopped at a red light.

It turned out that the person who hit me was a women who did not speak English. I’m not really sure why she hit me, but it sure did some damage; both to my car and my aching back. I believe she received a citation, but it still seemed I got the worst of the accident.

This got me thinking, “What is the leading cause of accidents in Michigan?”

After doing some research I found the Statewide Traffic Crash Data report from 2021, which can be accessed here. At this site found some real interesting answers.

In the year 2021, there were a total of 282,640 total accidents in Michigan. Out of that number there were 1,131 fatalities.

Distracted driving accidents accounted for 16,543 of these accidents; more than drug- or alcohol-related incidents. 

According to The Zebra, an insurance agency website, distracted driving claims approximately 3,500 lives per year, and eight lives per day in the United States. Distracted driving is one of the leading causes of accidents, and 92 percent of drivers use their phone while behind the wheel, the website states.

People should put their phones down and pay attention when driving before someone else gets hurt (besides me).