COMM218 - WEEK 5 PRESENTATION

Please raise your hands if you have EVER texted while driving. Okay, wow. That’s quite a few people.

Imagine this: You have a date scheduled later that night with the person of your dreams. You can’t believe you even lucked into a date with this person and yet your opportunity for love is right in front of you. You decide to take a short nap to ensure that you are fresh and ready for your date. You wake up and notice that it’s dark outside and you panic. Your date! You look at the clock and see that it’s 20 minutes until you’re supposed to be at the restaurant. You get dressed in a hurry and run out the door. The clock in your car says you are about ten minute early, but the restaurant is 30 minutes away. You jump on the highway, step on the gas, and then get the bright idea to send your date a text to let them know you are running a few minutes late.

As your typing the text into the cell phone, everything goes black. The next thing you know you are waking up in the ambulance with a bunch of strangers around you talking about what a bad accident you just caused. You don’t know the specifics, but one thing is for sure, you know that your entire life and your future is about to be changed forever.

Now, let’s review some of the shocking research-related statistics of people who frequently text and drive.

According to the Center for Disease Control (2013), more than nine people are killed every day due to distractions while texting.

Three main distractions that cause these deaths by motor vehicle accidents include: Visual (taking your eyes off the road), manual (taking your hands off the wheel), and cognitive, (taking your mind off driving). Unfortunately, texting requires all of these and therefore is especially dangerous.

Because text messaging requires visual, manual, and cognitive attention from the driver, it is by far the most alarming distraction. The best way to end distracted driving is to educate all Americans about the danger it poses.
Numerous studies have ensued to determine the true danger of texting while driving. Highlights of these dangers include:

1. At 55 mph, your car travels the length of a football field in 5 seconds.
2. You are 23 times more likely to get into an accident while texting.
3. Texting while driving delays a drivers reaction time as much as having a BAC level at the legal limit.
4. According to a car and driver study, driver’s reaction time while reading and sending texts was way worse than while impaired with alcohol.
5. 37 of 50 states have already banned texting while driving.

Texting takes the driver’s attention away from the task at hand, which is driving. This distraction impairs the driver’s reaction time, which can mean serious consequences for anyone who gets in their way. A study conducted by the University of Utah shows that cell phone use while driving increases reaction time by the same amount as having a blood-alcohol concentration of .08 percent.

In another study done by Car and Driver, research was conducted to determine how long it takes drivers to react and brake while reading and sending a text message. The next slide will give you an idea of the shocking results:

Slide 2

So, about now you might be asking yourself what is being done to combat this problem?

Well, while many states are enacting laws to ban texting while driving, the number of texting related accidents and deaths remains high. Not only are the people actively texting while driving endangering their own lives, but they are also endangering the lives other others, including innocent children.

So how does technology fit into this equation? Well, it only seems fair that since technology is at the root of the problem via cell phones, then technology should also provide a viable solution.

Yes, my friends, there is an app for that! More accurately, there are several apps for that!

Fortunately, the telecommunications industry has taken notice. Application developers have come up with products designed to halt this dangerous practice. Let’s review some of the readily available application technologies created for the sole purpose of saving lives by alleviating the problem of texting while driving (Nationwide Insurance, 2013).

The Textecution app cuts off texting ability if the device is moving faster than 10 miles per hour. Passengers can request overrides, since they are not behind the wheel. However, all requests must go through an administration which can be a parent or employer to get approval for the override. If the user attempts to remove the application from the cell phone, then the administrator gets an automatic text notifying them of that too!

The tXtBlocker app is compatible with a wide range of smartphones, and allows users to customize the locations and times of day when texts and phone calls aren’t accepted.

The AT&T DriveMode is a free app for Android and BlackBerry users. This app automatically sends a customized reply to incoming texts, just like an “out-of-office” autoreply. It also disables all ingoing and outgoing calls and Web browsing. Users manually enable the app before driving, though, so participation is strictly voluntary.

The DriveSafe.ly app reads text messages and email out loud for the driver in real time. Drivers can also pick whether to have texts read to you with a male or female voice.

These are only a few of the available apps on the market today. And while these are fantastic apps and certainly promote safety, there is one special app I would like to highlight today.

The Drive Alive app rewards you with cash for putting that cell phone down for the duration of your trip. Yep, I said it…cold, hard, CASH…delivered straight to your PayPal account, and all just for putting down that cell phone and focusing on the task at hand, safe driving! This app does not lock your phone, but does monitor it using a technologically advanced GPS system. What’s great about this app is that is not only rewards the driver, but passengers are encouraged to sign up too! This app is currently available for Android users and an iPhone app is in the works!

As you can see, there are a lot of options to encourage safe driving and if you are not particularly worried about going to jail by breaking the law, then you must be excited about getting free cash for following the law! It’s a win/win proposition.

All-in-all, safety on the road should not be taken lightly. All too often, people think that because they have driven for years without incidence that this luck will continue to protect them. This couldn’t be further from the truth. We must all take responsibility for our actions and in doing so we will be protecting our future and the future of other innocent people.

Going back to the beginning story of the person who was late for the date of their dreams, we look on into what their life has become as result of texting while driving.

After a lengthy hospital stay, you feel lucky to be alive...that is until you’re ready to go home and two policemen are there to arrest you for killing a family of four. As they handcuff you and take you out, all you can do is scream, “but it was only a TEXT!”. But in the minds of the family and friends of those four innocent lives that you have so carelessly stolen, the negligence was yours and your alone. As you sit in your jail cell contemplating the reality of that all-important text, you realize that you will never have that date of your dreams anyway because you will potentially be spending the rest of your life in an 8 x 10 jail cell.

At the hearing you see the family and friends of the victims you killed. Oh it wasn’t intentional, but that doesn’t seem to matter to anyone today. As the judge strikes that gavel for the last time, your fate is sealed.

I’d now like to ask each and every one of you to go out and tell one person about what you heard today. In addition to that, I’d like each of you to go one step further and research some of the apps we discussed today and then install and use it! This is what you can and should do to protect yourself and your family. Please don’t be that person sitting in that 8 x 10 jail cell, who was put there by a decision that they thought had no consequences.

Thank you for attending this presentation. Please feel free to contact me should you want informational pieces to conduct your own presentation on the dangers of texting and driving.

References

Nationwide Insurance (2013). 3 Apps to Stop Texting While Driving.
Retrieved from http://www.mynationwidemagazine.com/3-apps-stop-texting-while-driving

References: Nationwide Insurance (2013). 3 Apps to Stop Texting While Driving. Retrieved from http://www.mynationwidemagazine.com/3-apps-stop-texting-while-driving