Picture this: you're playing a game. In this game are many pathways. You have a destination within the pathways, and you know the route you need to take to get there. However, there are others among the routes with you, and you have to be careful not to bump into them.

There are places you have to stop to let others through and where you have to wait to be able to turn. You have certain speeds you maintain when you're in different areas. Areas where you can go really fast, and others where you should go slower. If you go too fast, you might get in trouble, and if you go to slow, the other people around you get angry.

People are constantly passing you, going around you, and coming up next to you. If you or they are not paying attention then someone could get killed. You see, while you are on these pathways, you are operating a large, heavy machine.

And so is everyone else. You have to maintain constant vigilance so as to keep to the speeds, avoid other people, and to watch for others who might run into you.

Now does it seem like this is the kind of situation that you would allow for distraction? That you would, for a moment allow yourself to have your attention removed from everything that is going on around you?

You have so much movement around you, you are moving yourself, and if one person messes up, hits someone else, so many others could be affected.

You probably see where I am going with this. The pathways are the roads that we frequent every day. These roads have plenty of distractions to them already, with billboards along the sides of the freeways and people moving along the sidewalks and in neighborhoods.

There are advertisements of the restaurants and businesses along the main roads. So what more could we possibly add to this mess of distractions?

Something that can be held in our hand, yet is capable for holding our full attention for sometimes hours at a time. It has such a small screen, yet that screen tends to fill our entire vision. And it offers an entire universe of distraction.

Why would anyone think that they could use this device when navigating a vehicle that weighs thousands of pounds and is surrounded by other distracted drivers? How can anyone justify this?

Well, I don't think it ever could be justified, yet people still do it. Talking on the phone while driving is one thing. That, I can handle. It might make you slow down a bit, which causes other drivers to become angry, but at least your eyes are on the road. It is when people text or even take pictures with their phones while at the wheel is what really bothers me.

I will not claim to be innocent of this. I have texted while driving, among other things. But only on very few occasions. I was very uncomfortable, and it scared me, how much my attentions was taken from the road. I don't like to be distracted from driving. In fact it terrifies me.

So that is why I cannot understand why others do it and do it repeatedly. It scares me. I don't want to drive on a road where people are going more attention to their phones rather than to their surroundings.

We've heard the accidents that happen on the news. We shake our heads when the reporter says that the driver who caused the accident was distracted by their phone. But yet nothing changes. We still drive by the slow people and see them looking down when they should be watching the road.

It can be called nothing but selfish. Selfish that you have to get to your personal concerns so immediately that you have to look away from an activity that concerns so many around you. How selfish can you be that you have to send that snap chat? Read that text. At the danger to yourself and all those driving around you.

That text you have to send is so important that you have to look down when slowing down approaching a light. Sure you might only do it when you're stopped. But when you get comfortable doing that, next you're doing it when you're on the freeway.

You might do it all the time, so your confident you're capable of handling both a phone and driving. What about those around you? What if you're looking down when another driver accidentally swerves toward you? Or if someone stops more suddenly that you were anticipating?

All it takes is one time. One time, and you're in an accident, having rear-ended someone, or having careened into the ditch. It happens in a single moment. You might even cause an accident so serious that there's a casualty. Don't believe it could happen? Go and google "texting accident statistics" and see for yourself how many accidents are actually caused by texting and driving.

Have people in the car answer your texts for you. If there is no one in the car with you, let it wait. Trust me, it can wait. If it's an emergency, don't cause another one by frantically trying to operate your phone and figure out what is going on. Get where you need to go first. It can wait that long. If it can't pull over. If that text can't wait, then where you need to be can. It. Can. Wait.

If you hear a text and absolutely have to know that it says, keep your phone in a part of your car where you can't hear or see it. On my way to and from school, I keep mine in my backpack in my back seat. Other times, I keep it in my middle console. I do not want the temptation to check it. Remove that temptation from yourself as well.

This is the point where I beg you, I beg you: please stay off your phone while you drive. For the safety of yourself, and all those around you. Take one thing at a time. Drive first, text later, or vise versa. Either way: one thing at a time.