Life's little reminders

A woman once lost some of the people that were closest to her, four of them. She came to a point in her life were she felt so alone, that she took her own life. At her funeral, the church was so full of people that many of them had to stand outside the entrance. 
Think about that when you feel alone. 


This was just one of the stories we were told today while listening to a campaign the Norwegian Public Roads Administration has been holding at high schools all around the country. A woman was at my school to talk about speaking up while riding with someone who drives like an idiot. She told us another sad story about a girl who had been at a party, when she noticed that it was 45 minutes past her curfew. She ran outside but couldn't find her friends anywhere. However, there was a guy there with a car who said he had some buddies who were going to the same area she was and that she could get a ride. (In Norway this is TO SOME DEGREE safer than in America). She ended up sitting in the back seat between two guys, and as they came to a dark and curvy forest road the speed had increased so much that she was scared to death.


She didn't say anything.


They then ended up crashing and she fainted. When she woke up, it was pitch black and silent. The only sound was a tire that was still spinning. She was stuck, and sat between four dead bodies for two hours before anyone found them. 

It's stories like this that people have to hear, in order to really think. This entire campaign was trying to make us speak up. It also wanted to make us think twice about when we as drivers had passengers, or when we in general were the drivers. She then told us how once a girl was driving with her mother as a passenger. Her cellphone was lying beneath the stereo (the place were most drivers keep their phone), and all of a sudden the phone rang. For only a couple seconds her eyes went down to the phone as she picked it up and answered it, then she hit a semi-trailer. On the phone was her boyfriend, who heard it all. When he got to where they had crashed the police had to hold him down and cuff him because he was completely hysterical. The girl died, her mother survived. 


It only takes a second for life to change, or end. During that session, pretty much everybody seemed to get it, to understand and want to be careful. The sad thing is however, I have a strong doubt that most of them will actually stick to it. I, myself recently got my drivers license and I believe I am one of the few who will actually stay careful. Things like this make me think, make me remember how important it is to be careful with the life we have and with the life of others. 

Isn't it scarier to be dead, than to say slow down? Isn't it worse to be dead, than to put on a safety belt in front of friends? Isn't it worse to be dead, than to call somebody back later?


Be careful out there on the road guys. You matter to someone, and someone matters to somebody else. Remember that. 

-S.