Texting/Emailing While Driving? NO MORE!
It is amazing to me that we have to conduct studies and pass laws to determine texting while driving is dangerous. I have 3 children in their 20′s all with blackberries and it scares me to think they may be driving while texting or emailing.
Transportation Institute found that truck drivers who were texting were 23 times more at risk of a “crash or near crash event” than “nondistracted driving.” As per talking on a cell phone, the same study found no increased risk for truck drivers and 1.3 times the risk for car drivers. The study also found that “texting took a driver’s focus away from the road for an average of 4.6 seconds–enough time…to travel the length of a football field at 55 mph.”
Texting drivers are easy to spot. Like drunken drivers, they’re the ones going too slow or too fast, or weaving, says Gregory Massak, the police chief of Shirley, Mass. “They’re concentrating more on [the phone] than on driving.”
His officers are well aware of the impact of this behavior. In September, an 18-year-old died when she crashed her car into a tree seconds after receiving a text message.
To those who don’t text regularly, these dangers might seem obvious. But for many teens, and a growing number of adults, texting is a central way of communicating – a virtual conversation that doesn’t stop in the car. Even with the growing restrictions, 73 percent of teens admit to texting while driving, according to a Students Against Destructive Decisions (SADD) study.
“Some of them say that they’re good at typing without looking at the screen; others say they hold it up by their eyes as they text,” says Stephen Wallace, national chairman and CEO of SADD.
Heather Barrett, a college student in Ohio, says she probably receives and sends more than 500 messages a day: “I prefer to text and drive rather than talk and drive. I can put the phone down in the middle of the text if something is going on.”
The ban on sending and reading emails and texts while driving became effect December 1, 2009. This law prohibits a motorist from texting and/or emailing while driving. Motorists who are in violation of this new law face a fine of $100 plus court costs. The law includes exceptions for emergency responders, as well as people who use voice-activated technology or access global navigation systems.
As the holidays swiftly approach let us all be safe and don’t text and drive!
