Texting and Driving: Is It Taken Seriously?

I don’t even mess with my phone unless I’m at a stop light. When I do I’m staring at my screen for several seconds at a time constantly changing my focus between my phone and the traffic light I’m at. I have been on the passenger’s side of the car while the driver was texting and that is always a much more stressful situation to me. The worst that has ever happened in my experience was the car swerving off the road for a couple seconds; thankfully no one was hurt. I temporarily took the phone away from the driver for the rest of that car ride. There was no way I was going to allow that to happen again and in retrospect I am glad I did now that I see how high the risk of an accident is.

Since the recent widespread popularity of mobile phones over the past few years, one huge problem has arisen that far supersedes any minor complaint such as say a phone’s bad service; people texting while simultaneously trying to drive. Most people use their cell phones at a high rate for so many different things, so it’s no surprise that people use their phones while in the car, but the problem is when it distracts them from driving.

Texting while driving causes a distraction in three ways, it takes at least part of the driver’s focus away from the task of driving, texting while driving causes you to take at least one hand off the wheel to read and send messages, and it forces drivers to take their eyes off the road for an extended period of time (Gardner, 2010). When you text and drive, your eyes are off the road much longer than they would be if you were to pick up the phone to answer a call. On average people devote 4.5 seconds to their phone while texting and driving. That is long enough to drive the length of a football field at 55mph without looking (Gardner, 2010).

Drivers are 23 times more likely to get in an accident when they text and drive. Crash investigation forms usually do not list “texting while driving” as an accident cause. It’s not listed because it’s such a new problem, but the longer it exists the more likely it is to be researched and taken seriously (Gardner, 2010). I always knew it was dangerous to text while driving, but I didn’t know drivers are 23 times more likely to be in an accident. This statistic certainly will have me second guessing whether I should be texting even at atop lights.

Teens are already risky drivers on the road because of their inexperience; texting while driving only enhances that and elevates their chances of crashing. 94% of those admitting to texting while driving agree that it makes them more likely to get in an accident (Gardner, 2010). The AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety did a study in 2009 and found that 94% of the drivers they surveyed believe it is unacceptable to text while behind the wheel, yet 21% of those same people did it anyway.

Despite being aware that texting can cause accidents, many drivers text anyway because they feel they are not the problem. Drivers are overconfident in their skills and believe they can text and drive safely (Gardner, 2010). People admit that the act is risky and unacceptable, yet still do it. It’s just like I pointed out in the previous section, not everyone abides by the law. Some enjoy breaking the rules to see how much they can get away with. In this case though, I think most people have a similar mindset to buzzed drinking and driving. Most people believe one drink won’t affect their driving; at the same time I believe most people think answering one text won’t hurt either.

26 states and Washington D.C. have laws prohibiting texting while driving. 21 of the states allow officers to ticket a driver solely for texting while driving. The 5 remaining states only ticket you if another offense has been committed such as not wearing a seat belt (Gardner, 2010). Officers have a hard time detecting the offense unless there is erratic driving behavior. It’s not as obvious as violations like running a red light or making an illegal U-turn.

There are a few studies about the effectiveness of laws that ban texting while driving and they all have different results. One study showed that in-vehicle texting dropped 70% in California months after a law came out. Another study showed that the bans worked initially, but the drivers would gradually revert back to their old habits over time. A study in North Carolina showed that a law prohibiting the use of any mobile device by anyone under the age of 18 had little to no affect at all (Gardner, 2010).

I think that the more people acknowledge texting and driving as a serious issue, the less people are likely to attempt it. There are plenty of graphic pictures and videos spreading around about the subject. I’m curious to see if those pictures and videos will have an effect on drivers deciding if they will text and drive. For me personally I think that if I’m driving by myself then I’ll continue to text only at stop lights; I wouldn’t do it if there are other passengers in my car though. I’m not sure if the problem will ever completely go away, since our cell phones are so valuable to us, but dramatically decreasing the death toll will definitely do wonders for our society.

Gardner, L. (2010, November). Wat 2 do abt txt’n & drv’n (aka: what to do about the problem of texting while driving?) CPCU eJournal. Retrieved November 4, 2011, from the EBSCOHost database.