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Texting And Driving: Why It's So Dangerous?

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In 2002, Americans sent more than one million text messages a month. Now number of messaged has increased to 110 million a month and fatality crashes have almost quadrupled. As technology is advancing so is the number of fatal crashes due to texting and driving. Everyday 15 people are killed and 1,200 are injured due to distracted driving and the crash risk increases by 23 times when texting and driving vs. texting with no distractions. Reaction time slows down when distracted (“Road Kill”). Texting and driving is in the same category as not wearing a seatbelt or speeding so why are people still doing it? Multitasking, texting and driving is a cognitively complex task and there’s many reasons why it’s so dangerous (Precious). If you think …show more content…

The National Transportation Safety Board wants a nation wide ban on cellphones while driving but putting a ban on texting and driving is hard to maintain because people text in their lap below the window line and out of sight. The federal government was pressured to change driving laws to set new cellphone regulations to lead to a reduction in fatal crashes (Weston). People know this is a problem and they want to keep their kids safe. There’s two main age groups for dangerous driving, ages 16 - 19 and 65 - 85. Teen drivers are more likely to engage in texting and driving. In 28 states all teen drivers are banned from any cellphone use. Youth texting and driving has become a greater hazard than underage drinking and driving (“Brutal Reminder; put down the phone”). Some kids just believe that an accident while texting and driving won’t happen to them but just this year we have upped our rules and regulations on texting on driving in Iowa. Texting and driving of any ages is now a primary offence (Lassner). Today’s problem is that everyone is so obsessed with the newest apps and not missing anything. One thing people don’t realize that it’s okay to miss out on that twitter drama if it means you won’t miss out on the rest of your life. You don’t want to risk your life or anyone else's driving on the road for a text back. Stay safe, put that phone down, text them back when you’re done

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