Deaf to the World (Summary)
Teenagers these days are preoccupied on the road listening to music or maybe busy smsing to others and are hence oblivious to their surroundings. This is a dangerous trend as their attentions are distracted and are unable to focus either while driving or walking along the streets and accidents are prone to happen. This trend also affects the alertness for jobs involving security as the guards are listening to music to pass the time. However, the trend is still rampant even though dangers are involved.
To Listen or Not To Listen?
Ever knocked into a person yet not scolded for it? Ever saw someone nearly knocked down by a vehicle yet unfazed? Well, here is your chance. It is reported in the news that people do not mind their surroundings even though they are among other people. The bulk of this people are mainly teenagers or the young. I myself am a part of these people and I admit that I do lose all sense of alertness when I listen to music. However, some people feel that others will look out for them and they will be safe. This is worrying as it lowers your own sense of alertness making yourself more prone to accidents. Therefore I feel that we should not listen to music while we are along the roads to ensure the safety of ourselves and others.
Safety comes first, many a times we have seen and heard this phrase and for some drilled into us. Yet there are still people out there who do not give two hoots about this phrase. A test of alertness on people who are either smsing or listening to music was conducted by a Sunday Times team; 30 of whom are smsing and the other 30 listening to music. Reporters deliberately “walked into” the people who were smsing to see if they noticed. However, 5 people bumped into the reporters and 6 only dodged just before collision. This is worrying as there are people who actually lose all sense of alertness when smsing. The other 30 people who are listening to music are tested by ringing a bicycle bell to see if they would move out of the way. Of the 30, 12 people did not get out of the way. This is very serious as if was not merely a test but a real scenario, these 12 people might have gotten serious injuries or possibly died have it been a vehicle. These results show us that the level of alertness in us is greatly reduced when we are distracted, making us prone to accidents. Therefore we ought to disallow smsing or listening to music when we are by the road or in crowded places to prevent accidents from happening.
What are the odds of being in an accident? People may feel that unfortunate things like this will most probably not happen to them. It is in the mindset of people that Singapore is a very safe place where they will be looked out for all the time. This attitude is common among Singaporeans as shown in statistics. It is true that the odds of being in an accident is very low, but at the rate of low level of awareness of people while on the streets due to distractions, these odds are going to increase greatly. People listen to music to relax, I do so too, but this relaxation is for places where there will be no danger. Relaxing while on the streets is tantamount to suicide. A Polytechnic Student said that she was nearly knocked down by a bicycle as she was listening to music and could not hear the bicycle; thankfully the bicycle avoided her in time. Had the biker not been able to avoid her, she would most probably be injured and have something broken. Another Polytechnic Student said that it is the driver’s duty to watch out for the person in front of him and hence there is no cause for worry. Such attitudes are the main cause why accidents are happening every other day. Therefore, we ought to disallow use of such distractions on the streets to prevent accidents.
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