Texting & Driving

It is very hard to find someone who doesn't text or use their phone multiple times a day.

Since we are so used to sending hundreds of texts a day, we don't really see how it can be dangerous. However, doing so while driving could result in your life. Not only do we put ourselves and anyone in the car at risk while we text, we also endanger the other drivers on the road as well. Almost 400,000 crashes each year involve texting and driving.

Many people fail to realize just how impactful texting and driving can be. "More than 1,000 people are injured every day due to a distracted driver," (Texting & Driving). DRivers think that looking away for 3 seconds to send a message is harmless, but over 1000 are injured and more than 10 of those die everyday. "In 2015 42% of teens say they have texted while driving-and texting and driving is the leading cause of death in teens," (Texting & Driving). Texting and driving while being a teen is especially dangerous, do to the fact they have not had many years of practice. "The National Safety Council reports that cell phone use while driving leads to 1.6 million crashes each year," (Texting and Driving Accident Statistics). Car crashes are inevitable, but if we didn't text while we drove over a million crashes each year could be prevented.

Many dangers are presented amongst the topic of operating a vehicle while texting.

However, as most of us know this, it doesn't seem to affect their actions. "Hefty fines, License suspension, Rise in auto insurance rates, and even Prison time," (Texting & Driving), are some of the penalties most states have applied. Studies have shown that it is worse to texting and drive, than it is to drive drunk. So we do we do it? Why do we find it so tempting to look at our phones and text when we are behind the wheel, even if we know what it could result in? While we all use our phones every day, it may be easy to glance over, however there are ways to help decrease the amount of accidents. Many phones even have a restriction set called "Do Not Disturb" that you can use to hide alerts. This helps prevent you from looking at a newly received message.

Looking and using a phone while driving can be very tempting. However, it is up to us to help stop over a million crashes from occurring each year. If we all stopped using our phones while driving we could not only save ourselves, but others in the car with us, and our fellow drivers on the road. Is that text really worth the cost?

Works Cited https://www. dmv. org/distracted-driving/texting-and-driving. php https://www. edgarsnyder. com/car-accident/cause-of-accident/cell-phone/cell-phone-statistics. ht ml