It can lead to the death of loved ones, and can be compared to the same level of danger as drunk driving. No matter what age the driver is, under no circumstance should they be texting while driving. Texting or using a cell phone while driving is hazardous to you and to others. One reason the majority of people are against this action is because it causes a great amount of car accidents every year. While driving, adults and teenagers cannot resist the urge to pick up their cell phone and send a text or respond to one, as soon as the driver’s eyes meet their cellular device; their focus on the road is drawn away.
When a teen gets to that age all they think about is driving, but when they turn that age parents just begin to worry. “Adrian Lund, president of the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, a research group funded by the auto insurance industry, acknowledged the idea is "a tough sell," but noted that car crashes are the leading cause of death among teenagers” (Irvine). That is a big statistic to ignore. Pennsylvania had 242 deaths which involved a teenage driver in 2008, third among all 50 states behind that of Texas, 650 deaths, and Florida with 516 deaths (California DMV). Teenagers are reckless and we must do everything reasonable to prevent deaths.
There are many laws out there that ban texting and drinking while driving to keep people from harm’s way but there are so few people who actually obey the laws. Research shows that drinking while driving & texting while driving are equally harmful because they both impair the driver’s vision, the driver’s reaction time, & the driver’s concentration & vigilance, all skills needed to prevent millions of accidents, deaths, & injuries every year. There’s ample evidence that shows drunk driving fatalities have definitely decreased in the last 40 yrs. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration provides us with some interesting information, which I have converted into a line graph. My visual aid shows the fast decrease in drunk driving fatalities between 1970 & 2012.
Drunk driving is the act of operating a motor vehicle while under the influence of alcohol. Because a person’s motor skills are impaired while drunk, driving under the influence is a major threat to public safety and is a criminal offense in most countries. (3 100) A number of suggestions have been made to combat drunk driving, including reducing the number of underage drinkers, imposing restrictions on licenses to keep drinkers off the roads and increasing the use of sobriety checkpoints. The current legal limit for drunk driving is 0.08 BAC which some people feel does not go far enough. Many advocates support tougher penalties for DUI and are in favor for a zero tolerance policy for drinking and driving.
The statistics continue to rise, but if we would take time to think about the lives being put in danger, perhaps we wouldn’t allow ourselves to be so heavily distracted. It only takes seconds for something terrible to happen, and every day I discover how dangerous drivers’ habits are-problems we see that exist every day. A dangerous driving habit that has recently increased is the use of cell phones while driving. Imagine a person using a cell phone while driving (one hand on the steering wheel and the other grabbing the phone near his ear), talking about last night’s party or about the baseball season that has just started. During this period of time, the driver’s attention is focused in the conversation.
Body A. distraction from cell phone use while driving hand held or hands free extends a drivers reaction time. 1. just as much as having a blood alchohol level of the legal limit of .08 percent 2. This is equivelent to having 4 drinks and then getting behind the wheel. B. Drivers that text while driving are 4 times more likely to get into crashes serious enough to hurt themselves or someone else.
In addition, the probabilities of driver texting on the cell phone and getting into accidents are only getting higher. Cell phone use while driving accounts for major cause of accidents and serious crashes. It does not matter how well one drives, if another driver is not being as careful, especially when using a phone, a split second one are put in danger by their own actions. However, the result of that leads to many deaths and produces numbers of hazards. The use of a cell phone while driving is very hazardous.
Texting and driving endangers life and property and the current levels of injury and loss are unacceptable. The solution to solve the problem of texting and driving is critical to society and action must start now. The existence of texting and driving has been present for the past twenty years or so, but the real problem has become extremely apparent in the last five or six years. People can completely agree that it is ubiquitous to see teenagers with a cell phone present in their hand. Distracted driving has become an increasingly immense problem on our nation’s roadways as cell phones have become more common in our day-to-day lives.
Talking on a cell phone is not the only thing that you can do to distract your eyes from the road. Americans are now playing games, accessing the internet, and even sending or receiving text messages. According to the National Safety Council, 1.4 million accidents involve drivers using cell phones every year and a minimum of 200,000 yearly additional crashes that involve drivers who were texting while driving (Texting While). Texting while driving is the cause of many accidents, and some of them are even fatal. Therefore, texting while operating a vehicle should be illegal in all places.
Distracted Driving On April 3, 1973, Martin Cooper placed the first cell phone call and probably never realized that the device would increase the risks of vehicle accidents (Marples, 2008). The problem with hand-held cell phones today is almost all Americans own one. The use of these devices when driving causes a distraction and increases the chance of accidents. The City Council should ban hand-held cell phone use for all drivers within city limits to decrease the number of distracted driving accidents and deaths. Background of the Problem Drivers in Georgia can operate cell phones while driving, and most probably know it can be a distraction.