Why is Text Messaging while Driving so Dangerous
When you get behind the wheel of an automobile, start the car and drive away, you have the incredible responsibilities to follow the rules of the road, pay attention to all traffic signs and signals, be aware of what the other vehicles around you are doing, and drive your vehicle safely.
With all of these things in mind, how can you expect to drive your car safely if you're paying more attention to text messaging, than you are to your actual driving?
Most people don't realize, especially at highway speeds, just how far their car travels in just a few seconds. In dry weather conditions at a speed of 60 miles per hour, your car will travel approximately88 feet per second. From the time anybody realizes they need to start breaking, it takes about 1 second to begin the breaking maneuver. Even with a vehicle that is in near perfect operating condition with regards to the breaks and tires, from the moment you realize the need to stop, to the actual second your car stops rolling, you will have traveled the approximate distance of the length of one football field.
Now then, let's assume for a moment that you're in the middle of a text message. Your eyes are bouncing between the road and your texting, and because you've become distracted by your text messaging, you don't notice that a large object is in the path of your vehicle.
If you had been paying attention to your driving, you would have noticed the object far enough in advance to take your foot off of the accelerator and apply your brakes. When you finally do recognize the object is there, it's too late to avoid hitting it, and when you do, you either damage or destroy your vehicle, or you cause a nasty pile up in the road because you made an aggressive, reckless move to avoid hitting the object.
You'd be fortunate, in this example, if you didn't kill yourself or anyone else in the process.
On May 16, 2009,a 19 year old girlwas killed when her truck began to enter a highway median. She lost control of her truck, it flipped end-over-end a few times, and she was ejected from the vehicle and killed. The accident investigation discovered that she was text messaging with her sister at the time of the accident.
On February 23, 2010,Heather Lerchmade the mistake of beginning a text message with a friend while within 3 miles of her home. It was the last mistake she ever made.
Stories like these are rolling across the headlines every day. More and more people, especially young people, are making the fatal text messaging mistake that costs them their lives.
There's another critical reason why nobody should be text messaging while driving any automobile.
During the course of a normal school year millions of children are transported to school in school buses. Those children often stand beside the road or in a driveway waiting for their school bus to pick them up. When the school bus arrives, many of the kids have to walk across the road to board their respective bus. This is the most dangerous action these children have to do in the mornings and afternoons.
People who are text messaging become so involved with their text conversations that they don't even realize a school bus is stopped in front of them to pick up passengers. The school bus gets rear-ended, or children who are crossing the street are injured or killed by these drivers who don't even see them.
Recently, a south Alabama school bus was rear-ended by a vehicle shortly after the bus had finished picking up children at one of it's stops. A car driven by a teenager slammed into the rear of the bus, went underneath it, and finally stopped when the front of the car came to rest against the rear tires or the bus.
The initial investigation revealed no skid marks from the vehicle, indicating that the driver didn't even attempt to apply the brakes. A cell phone was found near the young driver of the vehicle, and investigators believe that text messaging may have been involved at the moment of impact. The young high school girl driving the vehicle was killed.
Children who are boarding and exiting a school bus have no protection from drivers who are text messaging. The inattention and complacency these drivers are displaying, is a tragedy waiting to happen. It could be your child they hit, it could be a neighbors child they hit, or, it could be you hitting your own child if you're text messaging while you're behind the wheel of your car.
When you get behind the wheel of your car, it demands your full attention for the entire duration you're behind that wheel. Text messaging anybody while your driving down the road isn't worth putting anybodies life in jeopardy, especially your own. Your entire attention has to be directed at the road in front of you where it belongs, the traffic and traffic signs all around you, and the unsuspected hazards that may be waiting for you when you least expect them.
Not only do the lives of everyone on the road with you depend on you not text messaging, but your life, or the life you want to continue living depends on it too.
