Texting and driving, the danger

The Dangers of Texting and Driving
T.K. Saunders
Government Period 3

In today’s world there are plenty of distractions that can keep drivers eyes off the road, from adjusting mirrors, to changing the radio station, but perhaps the most dangerous distraction of all is texting. According to the CDC at least 9 people die in accidents involving texting every day, and over 1000 are injured. 50% of drivers under the age of 35 use their cell phones in some manner while they drive. This greatly increases our opportunity to crash. When we text, or read texts while driving we take our eyes off the road for anywhere between 1 and 7 seconds, this makes the driver 4 times more likely to get into an accident. Driving distracted is a serious problem that must be addressed. Over 91% of adult Americans have cell phones, over 200 million Americans drive. If these bad driving habits continue, eventually almost everyone will be texting and driving, roads will not be safe. It’s bad enough that we have to deal with drunk drivers, and drivers under the influence of drugs. Texting is just as bad. Using a cell phone while driving, whether it's handheld or hands-free, delays a driver's reactions as much as having a blood alcohol concentration at the legal limit of .08 percent (2009, University of Utah). We all know driving can be distracting even if you don’t have your cellphone. Watching other cars, listening to music, perhaps talking to a passenger are enough for a driver to handle. Most of us can admit that we have taken at least taken a peak at our cell phones while driving, I know I have. Now, when we pick up our phones while driving we not only take our eyes off the road our minds also begin to wander, we start to think about other things and lose focus on the task at hand, which is keeping a deadly vehicle under control. One second can make a difference between life and death for not only ourselves but for passengers, other drivers, and pedestrians. Too many people are getting hurt due to this epidemic of bad driving habits. Currently organizations such as the Ad Council and NHTSA have sponsored websites and commercials to publicize the dangers of texting while driving, some of the commercials feature possible accident scenarios while others show both crash victims and culprits. Most of these advertisements are extremely moving but they don’t seem to get the point fully across. AT&T has started a campaign “Texting and Driving… It can wait” which has made quite a powerful surge to get people to quit texting while driving, their mission has been backed by celebrities such as Oprah Winfrey and Gabby Douglass. Clearly these ads haven’t been enough, so some companys such as AT&T have created simulators to show people how dangerous texting and driving truly is. Just doing the online simulator provided by AT&T was enough to show me why I shouldn’t text and drive, but it may not be enough for others. Not to mention a lot of people won’t even spend the time to do the simulator. 43% of teenagers admit to texting and driving and over 77% say their friends’ text and drive. Now these stats may be somewhat skewed because a lot of teenagers don’t want to admit to doing anything wrong, but even at 43% the number is still high. Teenagers are on their phones more than most adults simply because that’s the way their generation has grown up. Their first right of passage was when they received their first phone and their second is getting their drivers license. Now, most teenagers think that they are invincible, plus they know everything, and now they are behind the wheel of a 2000lb car that is also a deadly weapon. Not exactly a winning mixture in the first place, and as soon as you add in a cell phone everything becomes far more dangerous. Now teens are perhaps the biggest culprits of texting and driving, which makes sense because they were raised using their cellphones. But at the same time it is quite odd that they continue to text and drive even though they see countless advertisements on billboards, on TV and on the internet about how dangerous it is. Clearly more needs to be done to get the point across that no text is worth the risk of taking your eyes and focus off the road. Something must be done at a more local level, kids need to be shown by their peers that it is dangerous, the big time organizations clearly aren’t making enough of an impact. Hopefully with the rapid advancement of technology, cell phone manufacturers and car companies will find a feasible way to prevent texting and driving, AT&T is currently working on a no text application but the only way it works is if the person activates it when they get in the car. We have to come up with something mandatory that will ensure that people can’t text and drive, but for now we must keep fighting the battle with statistics and frightening commercials.
The way I plan on fighting the battle is by focusing on my community, and particularly my fellow high school peers. I plan on creating flyers with information and statistics on the dangers of texting and driving. These flyers will include websites for students who would like to further research the topic. The flyers be passed out to Boulder Creek Students at lunch time, some flyers will be posted around campus. My ultimate goal is to spread the flyers to our neighboring school Sandra Day O’Conner and possibly other high schools throughout Arizona. Eventually I would also like to get a piece on the morning announcements to show a short video about the dangers of driving while distracted. In the end, if a person is unintelligent enough to text and drive than they probably will ignore the flyers and brush off the facts, but even if I only get the message across to one person in the entire state, that’s still one less person texting and driving on the road. Yes, I know some texts may be important, but do we really think that one message is more important than your own life or the life of someone else? Of course not, something must get done, I’m doing something about it, are you?