Research Paper on Texting While Driving

While Kelley was driving on I-4, a friend texted her. Kelley picked up her phone and read the text. While she began to laugh, she looked up and started to realize that she was too close to the truck in front of her which started to brake. Kelley was too late to react on time and got into a bad accident. Luckily she made it out alive, but she could have ended up losing her life. Although a lot of people text while driving, they never admit that they do so. As illustrated in the real life example before, texting while driving is very dangerous and distractive and that is why it should be made illegal. First of all, distraction is one of the major causes leading to accidents. From the moment of picking up the phone, to read a text, to the moment it is being put back down, there is a loss of sight from the road which could either result in a life threatening accident, or a lucky escape from a life threatening accident. A Nationwide survey has shown that 45 percent of Americans said they've either been hit or nearly hit by a driver on a cell phone (Saletan 2). It is a split second of loss of focus on the road that could cost someone their life. Texting while driving makes people lose vision from the road and makes them forget what is going on around them, and that is what makes it so dangerous. One study showed that “the more tasks you dump on drivers—listening, evaluating, answering questions—the worse they perform. They drift off course, miss cues, overlook hazards, and react slowly. It's the picture of a mind being sucked from one world into another”(Saletan 2). All of these add up to a series of events which can occur to a driver while texting behind the wheel who did not even notice what happened. That is when they suddenly look up and try to react in time while it is actually already too late to react, and they end up in an accident. People do not see the real danger of it until either they themselves experience a life threatening accident while texting and

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