Texting while driving

Don Jacobs

Attorney
(866) 735-1102 Ext 560

0 CommentsPrint ArticleSubscribe

Be honest. How many of you have sent a text message while driving? If not, have you ever checked your Blackberry or your I-Phone while sitting in traffic to check the stock market? Or check on the weather report? Or read your emails? How many of us have phones with GPS applications? You do have to type in the address to find the best route. How often do we pull over and stop to do this? The answers to the above would probably alarm all of us. Yet most of us consider ourselves safe drivers. It all comes down to the problem of distracted driving. Taking your eyes off the road for only a moment to check your cell phone can mean you travel quite a distance down the highway without watching where you’re going. And the greatest proportion of distracted drivers appears to be in the 20 and under age group. A recent report from AAA discussed how dangerous it is to text and drive. In a survey sent out by the association, one out of five drivers had read or sent a text message while behind the wheel. Nearly all of those who answered the survey considered it unsafe, even though 20% of the respondents admitted to having sent a text while driving within a month of being surveyed. Ford Motor Company recently commissioned a survey of 1,000 licensed drivers. The survey results showed that 93% of the people responding supported a nationwide law prohibiting texting while driving. According to the Institute for Highway Safety, eighteen states, including Washington and Oregon have now enacted bans on hand held cell phone use while driving. Now the National Safety Council has called for a total nationwide ban on cell phone use while driving. Texting has grown enormously in the last four years. Ten billion text messages a month were reported sent in December of 2005. In December of 2008, the number increased to more than one hundred and ten billion. It’s well past the time that driving while texting should be banned in all states.