I am not the safest driver.

Sometimes I text.

Sometimes I eat.

When I drive with my cat I let her out of her carrier.

God forbid I sneeze because every time that happens I feel like I'll hit anything near me.

I don't wear my seat belt 100% of the time.

Sometimes when I drive home from work of school I'm so zoned out I'll get home and wonder how in the world I actually got there safely.

I'm a typical Texan who goes above the speed limit.

I get distracted by cows and goats and any other animal that might be out my window.

For real, who gave me my license???

Somehow I've been fortunate enough to only have one red light ticket in four years of driving.

Until last week.

I was driving back to school from spring break, following my boyfriend going cruise control at 80 miles per hour, 20 minutes out.

It was getting dark, so I looked away from the road to look past my steering wheel to flip the lights on.

And I lost control.

I wasn't texting or eating or looking at cows; all things that have taken my attention off the road for way more time than it took to flip the lights on.

When I figured out what was going on I was speeding through what I knew wasn't the road anymore, trying to keep the steering wheel steady. The only thought going through my head was "don't over-correct." A few split seconds later I also thought, "oh yeah, BRAKE."

The airbags all went off and I came to a stop and got out of the car, looking in the window and feeling my face and chest thinking surely something had to be really hurt and I just couldn't feel it yet because of the adrenaline.

My boyfriend saw everything in his rear view mirror and ran up to me, also thinking that surely I was really hurt.

Turns out, I had lost control, hopped the median, crossed incoming traffic lanes, dodged a cement wall and a few trees, ran straight into a cemetery, knocked over eight tombstones, and stopped a few feet from another tree.

And all I had was a scratch on my arm.

It was the scariest moment in my life and I've been thinking all week about how blessed I am to be alive, never mind just have a small injury on my arm.

Here's the point:

I had heard all the lectures on the dangers of distracted driving. We had talks in high school, and just a few weeks ago we had a lesson on it in my sorority. Did any of these lectures change my behavior? No way.

I think distracted driving is so incredibly ingrained in our brains as okay that we just don't care, no matter how many lectures we get or testimonies we hear. But let me tell you this:

When you feel yourself lose control of your car before you even look up, it's not a fun feeling.

When you look up and can't even comprehend where you are or what you're doing because you're going so fast and out of control, it isn't a good time.

When you think about how close you were to your friends and family having to celebrate your funeral instead of your next birthday party, it's terrifying.

I never thought that looking down for a few seconds to send a text or unwrap a burger or change the song would do any harm. I certainly never thought taking my eyes off the road to change the lights would throw me off the road.

Please don't distract yourself when you drive. Please wear your seat belt. Please pay attention. Because you can have a perfect record and still get distracted by the smallest thing and lose control of a car so easily. It's so easy to get distracted but it's just as easy to ignore your phone or click your seat belt or keep your eyes on the road. Safe driving isn't hard and it can save your life (or at least it can save you the damage payments after you total a car)!