Are we really surprised that almost 6000 deaths and a half million injuries were caused from driver distraction last year alone? According to the Transportation Department, a research report indicated 5870 people were killed and 515,000 were injured last year in crashes where at least one form of driver distraction was reported. Driver distraction consists of many things from a ball going across the street to a car on the side of the road, to spilling your coffee, to someone texting on the cell phone.
While we all get distracted by many things that cross our line of vision while driving, there are some things people intentionally do that cause major distractions. Texting while driving is one such distraction. Texting has grown from nearly 10 billion messages a month in 2005 to more than 110 billion in 2008 according to CTAIA-The Wirelesss association, the cellular phone industry’s trade group.
Unfortunately, as texting increases, so do texting related vehicle accidents. We are reading about more and more cases where people are seriously injured or killed as a result of a driver texting while operating a vehicle. These accidents include everything from passenger cars to trains to air disasters caused by texting air traffic controllers.
The Virginia Tech Transportation Institute found that when drivers of heavy trucks texted, their collision risk was 23 times greater. A separate report by Car and Driver magazine found that texting and driving is more dangerous than drunken driving. According to the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, there are currently 18 states and the District of Columbia that have passed laws making texting while driving illegal. I am proud to say that Louisiana is one of the 18 states that have passed laws making it illegal to text while driving. If we used common sense, we would not have to rely upon our legislatures to make it illegal to text while driving. However, when we look at the statistics, we know that the bottom line is that all states should get on board and make texting while driving illegal.
Richard J. Arsenault, 2011
[...] Cars: Vehicular Silence and Pedestrian Deaths LaHood: texting-while-driving ‘epidemic’ Driver Distraction Can Lead To Serious Consequences This was written by admin. Posted on Thursday, October 22, 2009, at 11:21 pm. Filed under [...]