distracted driving.... stop. think. save lives.

It only takes a moment.  your life and/or the lives of others, can be drastically altered, or even ended.  You get a text, a phone call, you reach in the backseat for that bottle of soda rolling around on the floor, you check yourself in the mirror, you drop a quarter, your foot itches, you need a smoke, your friend tells a joke, you try to change the radio stations..... try to change the radio station.  that was the reason i had to borrow a vehicle for the rest of that summer.  Just ten minutes before that, I got home from vacation, changed into my work clothes in my laundry room, put my phone in my back pocket, left for work.  It was an ordinary day, i wasnt late, i was driving speed limit, wearing my seatbelt as always.  County road 12, barren stretch of tar between nowhere and a ghosttown.  There is a small creek that county rd 12 has to cross over, its not really a bridge persay, just a little strip of guardrail on each side, ten feet above water, if that.  Well, i didnt like the song that was playing, and in my mitsubishi, the tuner button was on the passenger side of the radio display.  I couldnt tell you, if the radio station ever changed, because the only thing i heard was metal on metal grinding coming from the passenger side of my car.  I looked back up, over corrected and lost control.  hitting the brakes did nothing and i slid helplessly straight down the embankment.  somewhere in those terror moments, my car turned sideways and started into a barrel roll.  There isnt a whole lot that goes through your mind after that, other than god please no im too young to die, and what do i do.  The only thing i could do was hold onto the wheel and wait.  when i felt it start to tip, i had thought ok maybe ill be lucky and just tip it on its side and stop.  and then i saw my windshield crack, heard my back window shatter behind me, and the sick sound of roof crushing inward.  I dont remember the rest, but my car came to rest on the passenger side, with my drivers side up in the air.  I remember just sitting there for a few seconds.  Then i thought, am i actuallly alive?  did i really just survive that?  that was the scariest thing ive ever encountered!  I walked away from that accident, my first car accident, and hopefully last, completely unscathed. which is amazing due to the fact of flying shattered glass, my xbox was rolling around in the backseat, easily couldve hit me, my door was bent so drastically that it was cutting sod and feeding it into the car.    I wasnt cut, i wasnt bruised, I wasnt even sore, besides my hips which only hurt bcuz with all the tension on my locked seatbelt, i couldnt push the button to get it off, and if i had, i wouldve fallen to the other side of the car, onto glass.  I cant help but think that god let me off with a warning that day... and i am so grateful.  My car however, my baby, my pride and joy, the galant didnt make it.   the tires were popped, the axles were bent the mirrors were gone, gascap ripped off, the entire sides of the body were crushed around the frame, the trunk was smashed, the roof was caved, my sliding sunroof was untouched somehow, and my front hood only took minor damage, and a busted bumper.  Unfortunately the only pictures i had of it are gone bcuz i broke my phone that they were on, but i dont need a picture, i have a horrific memory, just a remminder and a warning to drive carefully.  I havent been in fault of any other accidents so far, other than running over a walmart shopping cart due to low visibility in front of my truck.  Its been three years, and i still feel that day as if it was yesterday, i dont think that will ever change.  I was incredibly lucky, i couldve been injured or dead.  But even tho i was lucky, doesnt mean that u will be, and i wish that i could let others live the memory i have, to show them the danger iin driving distracted, but all i can do is tell them my story and hope it sticks with them, and they make good choices.