Persuasive Essay On Texting And Driving In The United States

Texting while driving is a large taboo in this country. We are told not to text while driving in school. We are shown the tragic advertisements, the heart wrenching statistics, but all of this still leaves a disconnect. It can never happen to me is an unfortunate assumption that most of us make everyday without even intending to be self-centered. The idea that we could cause ourselves or others harm is a mood point that few care to consider, but we must if we are ever going to face the epidemic that has swiftly becoming the fourth leading cause of death in America, with 25% of all the 1,600,000 deaths, 330,000 injuries, and 130,557 car crashes per year, being 100% preventable, if only we did not text and drive.

In the pursuit for statistics, I found staggering numbers on teens and young adults and their reckless behavior behind the wheel. In AT&T's Teen Driver Survey, 97% of teens agree that texting while driving is dangerous, and yet 43% do it anyway. Teens who text while driving spend 10% of the time outside of their lane, and yet 77% of young adults are very or somewhat confident that they can safely text and drive, and 55% of young adults claim it’s easy to text while driving.
There is, however more to this story than that people my age feel the need to be irresponsible and wild. According to the Do Something Campaign, 9 out of 10 teens expect a reply to a text, putting pressure on them to respond while driving. Yet, I believe that the cause of this mess starts long before little Jimmy is handed a cell phone. According to the National Organization for Youth Safety, 77% of teens state that adults tell them not to text while driving, and yet they themselves text and drive “all the time.” 40% of teens say that they have been in a car when the driver used a cell phone, 48% of kids between the ages of 12-17 have seen their parents drive while talking on the phone, 15% of young drivers have seen their parents text while driving, and 27% of adults admit to having sent or received text messages while driving. With these numbers, we see a significant part of the dialogue. They mean that kids today are given the slogan, “Don’t Text While Driving” but it mean nothing, because the people who give it to them, hypocritically do not follow the rule themselves. Furthermore, kids watch their parents’ every action, and mimic the action themselves. Little Jimmy was taught that it was okay to text and drive long before he was given a phone, long before he was behind the wheel, and long before he was told it was wrong to text while driving.

In a recent study by the National Safety Council, 7 in 10 people regularly are on their phone while simultaneously behind the wheel, and 800,000 drivers at any given time across the country are on their phone behind the wheel. All in all, 1 in 5 drivers of all ages confess to surfing the web while driving. This adds up to $230.6 billion per year, or an average of $820 per person paid for damages caused by car crashes.
In the time it takes a driver to send one text message when traveling at 55 mph, he/she will have driven the length of a football field without even looking at the road, making a crash up to 6 times more likely to occur than driving intoxicated.
According to the National Highway Transportation Safety Administration, texting while driving is the same as driving after drinking four beers. Similar to drunk driving, texting and driving is not without its casualties. Car crashes are the single largest cause of death in healthy U.S. citizens annually, with over 1,600 children under the age of 15 dying each year, and nearly 8,000 people are killed in crashes involving drivers ages 16-20, with 11 teen deaths every day according to the Institute for Highway Safety Fatality
Facts.

Despite these jarring facts, Americans can still justify their actions by stating that, “Reading a text is safer than composing and sending one,” “They hold the phone near the windshield ‘for better visibility’,” “They increase their following distance,” and “They text only at a stop sign or red light.” However, there is still hope. 90% of teen drivers say they would stop if a friend in the car asked them, and 78% say that they are likely not to text and drive if a friend tell them it is wrong. Today, 43 states, plus D.C., prohibit all drivers from texting, 10 states plus D.C. prohibit all drivers from using handheld cellular devices, 32 states and D.C. prohibit novice drivers from cell phone use, and 39 states plus D.C. prohibit all drivers from texting.

There is still more to do however. To help, go online and take the It Can Wait pledge. It is important because it saves lives: lives that belong to a friend, family member, or neighbor, not a statistic. It is important because it will save money: money that can be set-aside for something more important than insurance bills. It is important because pledging to be a safer drive is what is right.