Dear Future President of the United States,

Five years from now when I get my license, I want myself and everyone else to feel safe driving on the road. Right now, nearly every 9 in 10 teenagers have been engaged in distracted driving, and that can lead to major accidents. According to The Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, “Teen drivers ages 16 to 19 are nearly three times more likely than drivers aged 20 and older to be in a fatal crash.” That’s really bad and dangerous. Now maybe I should tell you a story about someone who got in an accident.

Her name is Cheyenne, just an everyday 18 year old teen from Lincoln, Nebraska. She was in the car when her friend was driving and texting. They weren’t wearing seatbelts, either, and were each in the hospital for over 10 days. "Well, yeah. Of course you hear it. You hear it all the time from adults," she says. "But people don't think about it until it happens to them, unless they get the message from another teen. If it happens to another teen, then I think they listen." I know as president, you could help people like Cheyenne be more aware about distracted driving before they get injured.

As president, you should care about distracted driving because nearly 6,000 accidents on highways have happened because of distracted driving. Besides, cars are a big part of transportation, and if it’s not safe to drive while people are multitasking and driving, it will become a big problem here in the United States. I believe that we can change that, though. One of the ways you could do this is by making an app that doesn’t allow you to text and drive. The phone would just stop working when you are driving, but it would come back to life when you aren’t. You could also make it a mandatory app, like “Camera” or “Safari” that you can’t delete on most popular phones. This way, it will hopefully prevent further distracted driving.

I am looking for a president who will have perseverance to try this new way of approaching distracted driving, and who will try his/hers hardest to protect the drivers on the road, no matter what.

Sincerely,

Annie