Upcoming Opportunity for a Grant on the Effects of Distracted Driving and How It Can Be Prevented!

As you probably know, when your club/team is focused on a subject as deep and complex as robotics, you're going to need some way to fund all the raw materials, electronics and other miscellaneous items that will be needed to create something great. This is why it's good news that there are some extremely generous companies out there that are willing to support us financially. In order to meet the qualifications for one of the grants currently available to us, our challenge is to convince you that the dangers of driving distracted are overwhelming and can cause ruined lives and permanent injury.

Imagine a dark Saturday night in a once-quiet suburban neighborhood. A student, with their friends, laughing away the night with happiness and bliss. They’ve each just stepped out of a house, ablaze with bass-heavy music and flashing strobe lights. A party, complete with friends, food, and alcohol, has been raging in a classic suburban neighborhood. These students just leaving have been drinking, stumbling and giggling all the way down to the car. A girl, carefree and laughing, strides up to the driver’s seat of a car while her friends crowd in the back seats and another girl gets into the passenger seat. Fumbling with the keys, she starts the car, vision blurry and world tilting. She’ll wave it off, as she believes that she isn’t “too drunk” and can still “drive well”. She drives, blissful friends in the back. However, even though she may think that she can still drive as she’s not “too drunk”, she drives towards an intersection, busy and bright with headlights. As she approaches the stoplights, she doesn’t realize that the light has changed, vivid green to a dangerous red. She keeps her foot on the gas, driving past the speed limit, into the red lights shining ahead as another car, with a mother and her children crosses the intersection. Time seems to stop as the drunk driver realizes the impending doom that awaits both vehicles. A collision, illuminated by red lights and headlights, and the world goes black.

Driving under the influence is defined as “operating a vehicle while affected by alcohol, drugs or both”, as defined by the Washington State Department of Licensing. In 2016 alone, 10,467 people died in drunk driving accidents in the U.S. One-third of all vehicular crash fatalities in the U.S. were caused by alcohol-impaired driving. These statistics from the NHTSA are highly daunting, a sad reality in our country. And the worst part is they could have been prevented, if only the victims knew how likely they were to become just another statistic.

The CDC says that young drivers are seventeen times more likely to die in a crash if they are intoxicated than adult drivers who are drunk, and far more likely to kill pedestrians or passengers as well. Those that make this mistake have their lives permanently changed for the worse, and future opportunities and dreams will be crushed in an instant. And that's only the ones that survive.

For these reasons, we would like to strongly encourage you to not partake in this behavior, and stay safe out there!