Keenan Coffey

9/19/13

Journalism F

Texting While Driving

Texting and Driving

Many people don't realize the overwhelming risk of texting and driving. Texting a friend, family member, or boyfriend/girlfriend can be very tempting to do while in a car. Some of the time they are actually important conversations. Although, texting while driving can wait. In the grand scheme of things, it just is not worth it. Taking eyes off the roadway creates a risk to not only the driver, but other drivers as well. Even the greatest drivers in the world lose concentration when looking at their phone intstead of the road. In doing this people are putting helpless civilian lives in danger. While texting and operating a vehicle, getting into an accident is 23 times more likely. Loss of concentration and awareness of ones surroundings can cause cell phone related accidents. 18% of all deaths in 2012 that contained distraction related activities were caused by cell phones. A driver's reaction time while reading and sending texts is far worse than drinking and driving. Not to mention the crime being commited while texting and driving. Penalties can amount to $2,750 in the most severe cases. Fines and tickets are so high because of the huge risk at hand. As a highschool student, I am very confident in saying my parents would make me pay for the entire ticket myself, and be extremely angry with me. A lot of highschool kids are angered when people say they are terrible drivers. This may be untrue in some instances, but more and more teens are losing their sense of good judgement. In a survey created by AAA, 46% of teenagers said they text and drive. This statistic is off because of the amount of teenagers that probably lied in the survery. Dishonesty is very frequent amongst 16-19 year olds. Taking this into consideration, More than half of the teenagers on the road jeopardize their lives and others around them. 77% of teens that text and drive said they were very confident in doing so and felt there was no danger. This being said,  11 teens each day get into fatal car crashes due to using a cellular device and driving. Statistics show texting and driving can not only put people in the car in danger, but also innocent people on the road.