How many of us are guilty of texting and driving? Well if we’re honest all of our answers would be yes! Everybody knows that now a lot of car accidents are caused by people not focusing on the road trying to play around with their cellular phones. Texting while driving should be important to us because if we don’t discuss this issue now, the problem with texting while driving will only increase more and many other innocent people will lose their lives. We are becoming more and more dependent on text messaging than any other thing. On a personal note texting is creating a society of individuals being less sociable to other people. If we don’t address the severity of texting while driving a lot of our family members could potentially be killed.
About 20 years ago the main cause of car accidents where drunk drivers, but more recently we have a new leading killer, teenagers texting while driving. Can you see how time has changed? Teenagers have always been targeted as reckless drivers. Adding texting to that reckless driving equals pure hell! Teenagers are constantly driving on the road all day posing a threat to innocent safe drivers. Operating a vehicle poses risk every time somebody decides to get behind the wheel; allowing teenagers to drive is giving them a great responsibility and requires a lot of maturity in the decisions made while operating a vehicle. And texting while driving is not a mature decision. Which is why you would think that the parents of these teenagers wouldn’t text and drive. A lot of older people may hound you about texting and driving, but “Texting while driving isn't something just teenagers and 20-somethings do. In fact, some studies show the biggest growth in texting is among people ages 35 and older” (Pfeiffer). Parents should be the ones leading the example for their children and encourage them not to text and drive. Texting while driving seems irrelevant and may seem like it will not hurt anybody, but it could be the initial cause of a terrible accident. “During the morning rush hour on Dec. 5, the 53-year-old driver of a blue Dodge Caravan was traveling north on Interstate 5 outside Seattle when he took his eyes off the road to scan an e-mail on his BlackBerry, the State Patrol says. And that's how he hit the white Mazda, which clipped the green Honda, which rammed the black Toyota SUV before spinning into the other lane and plowing into a city bus” (Wall Street Journal). Parents, what if one of those cars in that accident was the car that your son or daughter was driving? Doing something as simple as texting and driving could be very detrimental, and possibly make you be a murderer. Parents, you need to lead by example and show your children how to be safe drivers by refusing to text and drive.
The Picture is showing how texting while driving is a very similar to drinking while driving. Just like you should keep a designated driver, there should always be that friend that is the designated “texter”. If you want to text while you drive, then you should get a friend to read and text for the driver. We need to be more responsible in our decisions, and notice how every decision that a person makes could potentially affect the next person. You need to instill in your children that texting while driving is a very dangerous by setting the example by not texting while driving.
For more information on texting while driving
Cooper, Christopher. "Should Driving While Texting Be a Crime? - MSN Money." Commentary Index - MSN Money. Fall 2009. Web. 27 Oct. 2010. <http://articles.moneycentral.msn.com/Insurance/InsureYourCar/ShouldDrivingWhileTextingBeACrime.aspx>.
Pfieffer, Sacha. "Texting While Driving: Put The Thumbs Away : NPR." NPR : National Public Radio : News & Analysis, World, US, Music & Arts : NPR. 10 Mar. 2010. Web. 27 Oct. 2010. <http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=124081093>.
Lockovich, Mike. "Texting While Driving." Comic strip
