essay about texting while driving

Texting While Driving Essay Examples

Why is texting while driving dangerous.

Put simply, texting and driving are dangerous because texting diverts your attention away from the road. Although many people argue that texting only takes your eyes off the road for a few seconds, what they don’t realize is that in that few seconds, something unexpected could happen. Additionally, if you’re traveling at high rates of speed, you can travel significant distances in just a few seconds. Those few seconds that you are on your phone could be used to hit the breaks or swerve out of the way of a quickly approaching article. If your eyes are on your phone instead of on the road, you lose valuable time that could have been used to mitigate an accident.

How do you Break the Habit of Texting While Driving?

One of the best ways to stop yourself from texting while driving is to create a habit that will keep your eyes on the road and your hands on the wheel. For many people who rely on their phones for so much, this may seem like a difficult task. However, if you think about it, there are several things that you do habitually when driving a car that you don’t even think about, such as putting on a seatbelt or locking your car after you park it. The key is to incorporate putting your phone away as part of those routines. In that way, you’re not so much breaking the habit of texting and driving, but instead, creating new habits that prevent you from using your phone while in the car.

Making a new habit can be challenging. The key is to stay consistent and continually remind yourself of your goal until it becomes second nature. Try attaching a sticky note to the wheel of your car to remind yourself to not text and drive. Another good trick is to make a pact with a friend to help keep each other accountable. It is important to stick with your habit, not give in to temptation and always keep in the back of your mind the benefits of staying focused on the road and not driving while distracted.

The most ideal habit you can build is to simply turn your phone off when you get in the car. That way there is never any sort of distraction when you’re in the car – any notifications, no browsing social media, and no distractions while you try to pick the next song to listen to. However, this might not always be an option when you need to use your GPS or if you use your phone for entertainment purposes while driving. Fortunately, there are other solutions. You can use an app while you drive (we make some suggestions for good apps below!) and simply make a habit of activating the app before you hit the road. If you often drive with others in the car, another good option is to hand your phone to another passenger to hold onto until you reach your destination. If instead you typically drive alone, you can always close up your phone in the glove compartment, your purse, in the center storage console under your armrest or in any other place where you cannot reach it. That way, you can have your phone connected to the vehicle for entertainment purposes but will avoid texting and driving.

Can you go to Jail for Texting While Driving?

In Pennsylvania, drivers are prohibited from driving and texting. If you are pulled over texting and driving, you will be issued a fine. However, if you are texting and driving and you cause an accident, there may be criminal consequences for those actions that could result in jail time. The more severe the accident, the more jail time you can face. For example, if you cause a fatality by texting and driving, you may face up to five years in jail.

How many People are Killed by Texting While Driving?

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration estimates that in 2017, over 3,000 people were killed in accidents caused by distracted driving. In Pennsylvania alone, a study estimated that in 2015, distracted driving caused nearly 15-thousand car crashes and at least 66 deaths.

Apps That Help to Prevent Texting While Driving

Nowadays, there are many apps available to drivers to deter them from texting while driving. Here are some of our favorites:

• Drive Safe & Save– Designed by State Farm Auto Insurance, this app tracks your driving habits every time you get behind the wheel. Not only does it track when you’re using your phone while in the car, but also identifies when you’re speeding, breaking too hard or accelerating too quickly. The app will also provide tips on how to improve your driving habits. If you’re a State Farm customer, you can send your driving data to them and receive discounts for good driving on your monthly insurance bill too!
• LifeSaver – This app was designed for insurance companies and large trucking fleet – but is available for families too! For parents who are concerned about their children texting and driving, the app blocks the child’s phone while driving and alerts the parents when they have safely arrived at their destination. The app works quietly in the background when you start driving to block mobile distractions but provides options to unlock for emergency situations. It also provides reports on how safely family members are driving and parents can also unlock a reward system to incentivize good driving habits.
• AT&T DriveMode– Similarly, this app turns on when it senses that the phone is moving more than 15 miles per hour. Once activated, the app silences all incoming notifications, and will automatically respond to the caller or texter with a text stating that the person they are attempting to contact is currently driving. Parents are also alerted when the app is turned off, so you can help ensure your child is always safe.
• DriveSafe.ly – This app has to be activated each time you get in the car. However, once it’s turned on, this app will read aloud each text message you receive. It will also automatically reply to the sender that you are currently driving.

Check your Smart Phone – Many smartphones have “Do Not Disturb” or Drive Mode settings that you can turn on when getting behind the wheel.

Considering the importance of this matter and increase awareness to the next generation, we had organized the “Texting and Driving Essay” contest on for students. We are very happy to find that we got many great articles which show our next generation is pretty aware of this matter. The following four Texting and Driving Essay essays are the best entries:

Texting and Driving Essay: Statistics on texting and using your phone while driving and ideas to break those habits

By Leticia Pérez Zamor

Every day in the United States around one out of ten people are killed by distracted drivers, and around 1500 are injured in some way in crashes by these irresponsible, distracted drivers. One of the most dangerous, distracting activities that many people do is texting while driving. It is extremely dangerous because people who do this are putting more attention in texting, and they take their eyes off the road while they are driving, which increases the chance that the driver can lose the control of the vehicle, and could cause a crash or even in a worst-case could kill other people. When a person is texting, she/he is thinking about other things besides concentrating on driving. This is very dangerous because it could make the driver lose control of the car and slow her/his brain’s reaction time in case of a potential accident.

The statistics are very sad because according to the CDC (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention) in 2011, 3,331 people were killed in crashes involving a distracted driver, and 387,000 people were injured in motor vehicle crashes involving a distracted driver. Additionally, a recent study by the Virginia Tech Transportation Institute showed that drivers who are texting are twice as likely to crash, or almost crash, as those who are focused on the road. These statistics are reaching higher numbers because people are using their cell phones more and more, especially adolescents.

For this reason, it is very important that we find some ideas to break off this bad habit of texting while driving. I think that one of the easiest and best ways to break this habit is simply to turn off your phone. In this case, the driver wouldn’t be distracted by the ringing or buzzing of the phone, and it wouldn’t tempt the driver to text while driving. Another way to break this habit is to download some of the new applications that can disable cell phones while people are driving. Also, there are other applications that automatically send a text to whoever is texting the driver to tell that person that she/he is driving and that the text will be answered later. There are a great variety of applications to choose I think that we can use these to help us with the problem of texting while we are driving. Additionally, if a driver is waiting for an important call or text and has company in the car, the phone can be given to a passenger to check it out. Also, there are some programs that are helping to raise awareness about the dangers of distracted driving and to keep it from occurring. In these anti-texting programs, people can drive in a simulated situation, where they are driving but also texting, and can see how many accidents are caused by this problem.

Something very important is that many of the states have started to pass some laws that order drivers to stop texting while driving. However, we need to be sincere: none of these laws will be effective if we as a society don’t understand that texting while driving could have terrible consequences, not only for us as drivers but also for other innocent people. I don’t think that answering texts is more important than the lives of other people; texting can wait until drivers arrive at their destination.

The Dangers of Texting While Driving Essay

By LoryYau, St. Johns University

With the advanced technology in today’s world, people are very connected to each other and are constantly on their phone texting friends, going on social media, or using the phone to pass time. However, this also includes texting back a friend while driving. As simple as it might seems, texting and driving is very dangerous and should be taken seriously. In fact, in 2011, at least 23% of auto collisions involved cell phones. That’s about 1.3 million crashes! Not only that but texting while driving is actually more dangerous than driving while being drunk or high on marijuana. Every year almost a million people in the United States get into accidents, the majority: teens. Unfortunately, the number just keeps increasing.

Though texting and driving caused many injuries and deaths, there are still people who don’t think it’s a problem and are confident that they can use their phone and drive simultaneously. However, 34% of teens aged sixteen to seventeen spend about 10% of their driving time outside of their lane.  This affects other people who are driving and can cause the deaths of innocent lives. In a 2012 Cell Phone and Driving Statistic, it is reported that 3,328 people were killed and 421,000 people were injured due to distracted drivers. Furthermore, it is said that talking or listening on the phone increases the risk of crashing by 1.3 times while reaching for a device is 1.4. Dialing is 2.8 times more risk of crashing while texting is 23 more times. Additionally, talking on a cell phone and driving at the same time can make the driver’s reaction time to be as slow as that of a seventy-year-old.

To break these habits, people can either turn off their phone or put it on silent before driving. This will force them to concentrate on the road only. But if this method doesn’t work on some people, you can use S voice or Seri to command your phone to read out your messages or to reply back. This will allow your eyes to focus on the road instead of your phone. No more reaching for your phone to text “Lol” or “Lmao” and endangering your own life and many others.  Though you are still talking while driving, it still decreases your chance of crashing. An app in smartphones that works similarly to the method I described before is called DriveSafe.ly. Basically, it reads your text messages and emails out loud and has a customizable auto-responder. A few other apps that help prevent texting are called Safely Go and TXT ME L8R. Both apps work by either blocking the phone’s ability to text, receive and use apps or locking the phone. Then both phones automatically send a message to inform your friends or family that you are driving.  For parents, you can give your phones to your kids while you’re driving. You won’t be able to get them back when they’re too busy playing Angry Bird or Cut the Rope.

To stop people from texting and driving, one of the major phone companies, AT&T, address this problem by creating AT&T’s It Can Wait to text and driving campaign to spread awareness. Many stories and documentaries are also posted online to support this campaign. You can also join millions of others who have signed the pledge to never text and drive and to instead take action to educate others about the dangers of it. If you still believe you can get home safely by texting and driving, AT&T’s simulator will prove you wrong. It gives you a real-life experience of texting and driving. With this game, you’ll only find out that it’s not as easy as it sounds. Before you look at a text, remember that it is not worth dying for.

The Issue of Texting While Driving Essay

By Justin Van Nuil

It seems that everyone has a cell phone, and they cannot be separated from it. Cell phones have made a huge impact in the world, both good and bad. Most of the bad come when people, especially teens, decide to use the phone when behind the wheel of a vehicle. There are some huge statistics against texting and talking on the phone while driving, and people are trying to bring awareness to this expanding problem across the United States.

Staggering statistics are out there for everyone to see, yet we go about our lives ignoring the signs and warning against using our cell phones while driving. Textinganddrivingsafety.com tells us that texting while driving increases the probability of getting in a crash twenty-three times the normal amount, and thirteen percent of the young adults, eighteen to twenty, have admitted to talking or texting before the course of the accident. This is due to the time our eyes are off the road, and our mind’s capacity to do only one task at a time. Just taking our eyes off the road for five seconds, while the car is traveling at fifty-five miles per hour, is the same as traveling a football field without noticing what is going on around us. Seeing the danger in this is very evident, especially around intersections. Taking eyes off the road through an intersection is probably the highest risk, the light could be changing causing the car in front to stop, or worse, traveling through the red light or a stop sign into flowing traffic.

Texting is a major factor when it comes to crashes and creating a hazardous situation, so preventing the usage of cell phones while driving would be a large step in limiting the number of crashes that happen in the United States. There are multiple associations that are already trying to prevent cell phone usage. Associations such as the NHTSA, the Nation Highway Traffic Safety Association, which is an organization dedicated fully to tips and facts and videos showing how dangerous it can be to use your cell phone. There are also Facebook and Twitter pages, and blogs. In addition, the driving course in Michigan has a section in the lesson on the hazards of using cell phones while driving.

These are just programs that are helping to prevent texting while driving. Easy and simple ways that everyone can do as they enter the car. Firstly, by putting the phone in the glovebox, you eliminate the temptation to reach for it and use it while your driving. If you decide not to use that method, and you have a passenger, just give the phone to them, they can rely on the information to you if it is that important. Just keeping the phone out of reach, in general, will help prevent the usage of the device.

Not only are these ways are widespread and easily accomplished, but there should also be a restriction in general for usage while driving. I know multiple states have issued laws against texting, and in some states absolute usage of the cell phone while in the driver’s seat. Although, the overall effects may not be seen in the number of accidents prevented due to these laws, having a larger discipline for doing such activities should help in dropping the number of people on their devices.

Preventing the usage of these everyday devices is very simple, yet rather difficult, and will save lives if it works out. Accidents are deadly to many people, so creating an environment for everyone is better in the long run. As a young adult, I plan to use some of these ideas and promote these websites and encourage others around me to do the same.

Why is Texting and Driving Dangerous?

By Haley Muhammad

It has become such an issue that every time we turn on the TV all we see is that same commercial running about that girl who died because she wanted to text her friend back. Or that now in every major TV show someone always gets in a car accident because they want to text someone that they love them. It’s clear that no one has the decency to pull over to text someone back or even call them to say I will text you later because I’m driving. It’s a rising epidemic that’s destroying the generation of teenagers. I remember when technology was something beautiful because of how helpful it is but, now its become a hazard to the generation alone. Statistics have shown that “ Texting while driving has become a greater hazard than drinking while driving among teenagers who openly acknowledge sending and reading text messages while behind the wheel of a moving vehicle,” stated by Delthia Ricks from Newsday newspaper.

Ever since the emergence of cell phones, this generation has become heavily dependent on it for every minute of every day. Cell phones and texting were created ultimately to provide communication but it has now become so much more than that. Statistics also show that “Seventy-one percent of young people say they have sent a text while driving. As a result, thousands of people die every year in crashes related to distracted driving,” (Distraction.gov). Texting while driving has become a heavy habit for most teens and adults as well but regardless of the commercials and shows and statistics that show the results of texting while driving most people cannot kick the habit. Other statistics include, “Individuals who drive while sending or reading text messages are 23 percent more likely to be involved in a car crash than other drivers. A crash typically happens within an average of three seconds after a driver is distracted,” (donttextdrive.com). Overall all these statistics are saying the same thing, is that one text can wreck all.

So many lives are taken or altered because of the simple decision to send or reply to one text message. If precautions are heavily enforced before adults and teens especially enter the car, then maybe this epidemic can become obsolete. Fines are enforced but how well is the question? Phones are the biggest distraction when you enter a car, this doesn’t completely forget about alcohol or trying to change the radio station but technology has become so advanced that we have voice text and on a star. If the message is that important phones should become voice-activated and only respond to your voice so we can still pay attention to the road and send out a text without removing our hands from the wheel. Technology has also graced us with Bluetooth if you need to stay in communication just use Bluetooth and make a phone call instead which is completely easier than sending a text anyway because it’s faster and you can get responses much quicker than you could with a text message. Reality is one text or call could wreck it all.

Stuart A. Carpey, who has been practicing as an attorney since 1987, focuses his practice on complex civil litigation which includes representing injured individuals in a vast array of personal injury cases.

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Should Texting While Driving Be Treated Like Drunken Driving?

Distracted driving is dangerous. It’s also very common. Should authorities try to tackle the problem by dealing with offenses more severely?

By Michael Gonchar and Shannon Doyne

Find all our Student Opinion questions here.

Though texting and driving is banned in most states, the law still typically treats it as a misdemeanor, punishable by a fine. However, some states are pushing to treat texting while driving as a more serious offense, on par with drunken driving .

What do you think? Should police arrest people they see texting and driving , like they would an intoxicated driver? Should those who text and drive have their licenses revoked? Should a person wo is found guilty of killing someone while texting and driving be sentenced to time in prison?

In other words, how big a deal is texting and driving, and how seriously should it be handled by authorities?

In “ She Texted About Dinner While Driving. Then a Pedestrian Was Dead ,” Nate Schweber and Tracey Tully write about a case in New Jersey in which a woman who was texting and driving was found guilty of vehicular homicide after fatally injuring a pedestrian:

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107 Texting and Driving Essay Topic Ideas & Examples

Inside This Article

Texting and driving is a dangerous combination that has become a major issue on the roads today. According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, texting while driving is six times more dangerous than driving drunk. Despite the risks, many drivers continue to engage in this dangerous behavior, putting themselves and others at risk.

If you have been tasked with writing an essay on texting and driving, you may be struggling to come up with a topic. To help you get started, here are 107 texting and driving essay topic ideas and examples:

• The dangers of texting and driving
• The statistics on texting and driving accidents
• The psychological effects of texting and driving
• The legal consequences of texting and driving
• The impact of texting and driving on society
• The role of technology in preventing texting and driving
• The effectiveness of texting and driving laws
• The influence of peer pressure on texting and driving
• The impact of distracted driving on insurance rates
• The relationship between texting and driving and other risky behaviors
• The role of education in preventing texting and driving
• The impact of distracted driving on emergency response times
• The effects of texting and driving on cognitive function
• The correlation between texting and driving and car accidents
• The role of social media in promoting safe driving habits
• The impact of distracted driving on workplace productivity
• The relationship between texting and driving and mental health
• The effects of texting and driving on personal relationships
• The role of parents in preventing texting and driving
• The impact of distracted driving on pedestrian safety
• The correlation between texting and driving and road rage
• The relationship between texting and driving and substance abuse
• The effects of texting and driving on sleep patterns
• The role of technology in detecting and preventing texting and driving
• The impact of distracted driving on academic performance
• The correlation between texting and driving and anxiety
• The relationship between texting and driving and self-esteem
• The effects of texting and driving on decision-making skills
• The role of law enforcement in preventing texting and driving
• The impact of distracted driving on job prospects
• The correlation between texting and driving and depression
• The relationship between texting and driving and eating disorders
• The effects of texting and driving on memory retention
• The role of healthcare providers in preventing texting and driving
• The impact of distracted driving on financial stability
• The correlation between texting and driving and physical health
• The relationship between texting and driving and emotional well-being
• The effects of texting and driving on social skills
• The role of government agencies in preventing texting and driving
• The impact of distracted driving on community safety
• The correlation between texting and driving and social isolation
• The relationship between texting and driving and substance use disorders
• The effects of texting and driving on decision-making processes
• The role of technology companies in preventing texting and driving
• The impact of distracted driving on family dynamics
• The correlation between texting and driving and learning disabilities
• The relationship between texting and driving and physical fitness
• The effects of texting and driving on problem-solving abilities
• The role of media in preventing texting and driving
• The impact of distracted driving on stress levels
• The correlation between texting and driving and communication skills
• The relationship between texting and driving and time management
• The effects of texting and driving on creativity
• The role of advocacy groups in preventing texting and driving
• The impact of distracted driving on personal development
• The correlation between texting and driving and career advancement
• The relationship between texting and driving and academic success
• The effects of texting and driving on physical coordination
• The role of technology addiction in preventing texting and driving
• The impact of distracted driving on mental acuity
• The correlation between texting and driving and emotional intelligence
• The relationship between texting and driving and problem-solving skills
• The effects of texting and driving on decision-making abilities
• The role of social media addiction in preventing texting and driving
• The impact of distracted driving on social relationships
• The correlation between texting and driving and academic achievement
• The relationship between texting and driving and professional success
• The effects of texting and driving on personal growth
• The role of peer pressure in preventing texting and driving
• The impact of distracted driving on physical health
• The correlation between texting and driving and mental well-being
• The relationship between texting and driving and emotional health
• The effects of texting and driving on social development
• The impact of distracted driving on emotional intelligence
• The correlation between texting and driving and cognitive abilities
• The relationship between texting and driving and decision-making skills
• The effects of texting and driving on problem-solving skills
• The impact of distracted driving on interpersonal relationships
• The correlation between texting and driving and academic performance
• The relationship between texting and driving and career success
• The effects of texting and driving on personal fulfillment
• The impact of distracted driving on physical well-being
• The correlation between texting and driving and mental health
• The impact of distracted driving on social connections

These are just a few examples of texting and driving essay topics that you can explore in your writing. Remember to choose a topic that interests you and that you feel passionate about, as this will make your essay more engaging and impactful. By raising awareness about the dangers of texting and driving through your writing, you can help make the roads safer for everyone.

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Don't Text and Drive Scholarship

About the scholarship.

Don't Text and Drive Scholarship recognizes and rewards, with scholarships, students who submit outstanding essays on the dangers of texting while driving.

• Essay Required : Yes
• Need-Based : No
• Merit-Based : No
• This competition is open to U.S. citizens and permanent residents who are high school students, undergraduates, or graduate students.
• Applicants must submit a 140character essay on the risks of texting while driving.
• Finalists are selected on the basis of the content of that essay.
• The 10 finalists are then asked to submit an essay of 500 to 1,000 words elaborating on the same subject.
• The winner is selected on the basis of that essay's content and creativity.
• Country : US

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The Texting and Driving Prevention Scholarship

At Emerson Straw PL, we have seen firsthand the devastating impacts of distracted driving. Technological innovations such as smartphones have led to breakthroughs in both science and exploration, but these advancements have also caused an increase in distracted driving accidents.

As personal injury attorneys, we work with individuals who have suffered the physical and emotional effects of auto accidents involving texting and driving. Millions of innocent people are severely injured or die each year in these collisions. This is unacceptable, and we believe that this tragic problem can be curbed if individuals make a commitment to practicing safe driving etiquette and encouraging their friends and family to do the same.

Our law firm is pleased to announce our 2024 Texting and Driving Prevention Scholarship. This is a $1,000 scholarship opportunity that is intended to spur creative solutions to the distracted driving epidemic that is affecting the entire country.

To enter, please write a 750-word minimum essay that explores the ways that you can prevent yourself and other people from texting behind the wheel. Besides discussing your personal relationship with this issue, we want you to outline solutions and prevention tips to improve the safety of everyone on the road.

Scholarship Eligibility Requirements To be eligible for the scholarship, students must meet these requirements:

• Be about to enroll or currently enrolled in an accredited undergraduate or graduate program, or community college in the United States. High school students may apply if they have been accepted to an accredited college or university.
• Have a Grade Point Average (GPA) of at least 3.0 on a 4.0 scale.

Application Requirements Please send the following documents to apply:

• Your resume including contact details
• Your current academic transcript that includes your cumulative GPA. (For first-year students, it is acceptable to submit an unofficial transcript from their accredited educational institution. For students who are not presently enrolled, please provide proof of acceptance to the future educational institution.)
• Your 750-word minimum (there is no maximum) original essay on the following prompt: Explain the ways that you personally prevent texting while driving. What preventative measures do you take that you believe other people should also be taking? How do you intend to spread these ideas? This essay must be submitted in Microsoft Word format ONLY . No exceptions.

Scholarship Application Deadline Your scholarship essay and application materials must be submitted via email to [email protected] no later than midnight EST on February 9, 2024. Please submit your materials with the subject line "[Applicant's name] - 2024 Texting and Driving Prevention Scholarship". All required materials must be submitted in ONE e-mail all at once to be considered. We will not accept any submissions sent via Pages or Google Doc. The Texting & Driving Scholarship essay will need to be submitted in Microsoft Word Document only. The remaining required documents can be submitted via PDF or Microsoft Word Document.

The scholarship winner will be selected based on the criteria outlined above. The winner will be determined at the discretion of Emerson Straw.

Upon applying for this scholarship, candidates acknowledge that all submitted essays become the property of Emerson Straw PL. Emerson Straw PL reserves the right to publish any or all portions of the submitted essays on its website or other electronic publications such as social media profiles.

Once chosen, the scholarship winner will be announced on our Emerson Straw social media. The winner will also be contacted directly via e-mail once chosen.

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Tackling Texting While Driving: ‘The Decision to Reach for That Phone Can Be Impulsive’

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You already know that you’re not supposed to text and drive. Your parents have lectured you endlessly about it, you’ve been taught the horror stories about it in driver’s ed class, and you probably live in one of the 49 states where it’s illegal for teens to text behind the wheel.

But the numbers suggest you’re not always getting the message.

Teens were responsible for 9% of all the fatal crashes involving distracted drivers in 2017, according to government figures. While the percentage seems small, that’s nearly 300 deaths that could have been prevented. Not to mention countless injuries.

Kit Delgado, an emergency room physician who’s also an assistant professor at the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania, gets that it’s hard to keep your hands off your phone. He sees it all the time in patients who come into his ER, like the college student who was heading down the highway to pick up his girlfriend when he heard his phone ding. He picked it up, dropped it on the floorboard, reached down to get it and crashed into the guardrail.

“You talk to any teenager in the country, and they’ve been beaten over the head that texting while driving is dangerous,” Delgado says. “But the decision to reach for that phone can be impulsive, it can be emotional, it can be subconscious and automatic. Even though if you were to step out of the situation, you would say you shouldn’t be doing this.”

The Imperfection of Human Decision-making

Years of treating people who have been hurt in distracted driving crashes is a big reason why Delgado is researching this topic. He’s heading up a multimillion-dollar grant, one of the largest ever funded by the federal government, to figure out the best ways to use technology to help drivers put down their phones. The research team includes experts from the fields of medicine, behavioral economics , psychology, insurance and technology. They hope their work leads to the development of more smartphone programs that can nudge drivers into the correct behavior, like apps that automatically switch on to prevent incoming notifications while in the car.

“What my research group is trying to focus on is how can we design around the imperfection of human decision-making,” Delgado says. “I think we can make a big difference if we can solve for it the right way.”

For starters, Delgado says, “texting while driving” is an antiquated term for talking about the problem. Distracted driving means anything that takes your attention away from the road, whether it’s that Starbucks frappuccino you’re trying to sip, or arguing with your best friend about your Spotify play list. Conversations, eating, drinking, texting, checking emails and social media notifications, using navigation and music apps, even putting on lipstick all contribute to distracted driving.

“For me, it’s not necessarily about cell phones, it’s about all the facets that can be distracting,” notes Catherine McDonald, an assistant professor at the University of Pennsylvania School of Nursing who has been studying teen driving for a decade. She’s working on the grant with Delgado and, like him, is motivated by her own experiences as a nurse treating young people injured in car crashes.

“What’s important to remember about driving is that you’re making decisions not just about yourself, but about other cars that you’re not controlling.” — Catherine McDonald

The research is still in the data -collection phase. Some of that data is coming from an app developed by TruMotion and being used by Progressive Insurance to capture all kinds of driving information – like hard breaking, speed, acceleration and distance traveled. The information will help the researchers figure out how to best use smartphones to help drivers of all ages.

“Tech is pervasive in the lives of teens. It’s a part of their very fabric, and the technology that we think of often is their smartphones that are with them all the time,” says McDonald, who also works at the Children’s Hospital of Pennsylvania Center for Injury Research and Prevention. “This generation of drivers has grown up with the cellphone. They’ve had phones, they’ve seen parents with cellphones, so that piece of tech is a big part of their lives. When we move to the role of driving with teens, it’s figuring out how to keep them safe with that technology.”

To be fair, teens aren’t the worst offenders. Delgado says millennials – typically people between 25 and 34 – are the most distracted drivers of any age group. But the professors say that the lack of driving experience makes distractions most dangerous for teens. “We know it’s one of the leading contributors to fatal crashes in that group,” Delgado notes.

Teens may be doing things they think are safer, like waiting until they’re stopped at a red light to check notifications. But that’s time they could be using to assess what’s coming next – changes in cross-traffic patterns, a ball rolling into the street, a stalled car, and so on. “They need to be using all opportunities to take in information about the road,” McDonald says. “What’s important to remember about driving is that you’re making decisions not just about yourself, but about other cars that you’re not controlling.”

McDonald believes the distracted driving will decrease when society accepts the danger as a norm. For example, smoking, drunken driving and not wearing seat belts are all risky behaviors that have been reduced as people have internalized the message that they are dangerous. She also believes individualized approaches are needed, including assistive technologies.

The professors, guided by their research, were asked to give their best advice for teen drivers, and here’s what they suggest:

• Use a Do Not Disturb app, which is automatically activated on many smartphones. The app prevents you from receiving notifications while driving and sends auto-responses to calls or texts. Some have settings that allow certain notifications to get through, so you can be reached in an emergency.
• Use Apply Auto or Android Auto, available in newer cars, so you can give voice commands for most functions.
• Get a phone mount for your dashboard. This will help you avoid looking down to find or use your phone.
• Pick your playlist ahead of time. Music is one of the biggest distractions for teens, so set up your tunes before you start the vehicle.
• Designate a passenger to handle your phone so that you don’t have to.
• Talk to your parents so they understand you will not answer their calls when driving. Call them back as soon as you’ve reached your destination. “That’s a really simple conversation for a parent and a teen to have,” McDonald says. “Teens can initiate that, and it makes them really responsible.”
• Know the laws in your state. Each jurisdiction is different, but 20 states and Washington, D.C., ban all handheld phone use.
• Turn off your phone.

The professors practice what they preach. McDonald uses Apple Auto, and Delgado has a phone mount and a Do Not Disturb app. “It helps keep me honest,” Delgado says. “I’m busy like everyone else, and taking a few minor steps to counteract those urges to use the phone helps. It’s not easy, but there are a few things you can do that help more than willpower, which almost never works.”

That college student who crashed into the guardrail survived, but he had a head injury. Delgado wants to see more of his patients walk away from car crashes, and that starts with drivers understanding that nothing is more important than what they are doing behind the steering wheel.

“Because, at the end of the day, what really matters is not taking your eyes off the road,” Delgado says. “Anything that takes your eyes off the road for more than a second exponentially increases your crash risk.”

Hear the story of safe-driving advocate Liz Marks , who was 17 when she crashed her car while trying to read a text from her mom. She suffered a traumatic brain injury and facial injuries, and lost her sight in one eye and sense of smell.

Related Links

• State Laws about Texting
• Government Crash Statistics
• Penn Medicine Grant
• Insurance Institute for Highway Safety: Distracted Driving
• Take the Pledge to End Distracted Driving
• For More Tips on Using a DND Function

Conversation Starters

Dr. Delgado says that his study is trying to figure out “how can we design around the imperfection of human decision-making.” What does that mean and how does it apply to the issue of texting while driving? What other issues might it involve?

How many of the professors’ driving tips do you follow?

As a passenger, are you confident enough to speak up if you think the driver is distracted by their phone or just not paying attention? Why or why not?

7 comments on “ Tackling Texting While Driving: ‘The Decision to Reach for That Phone Can Be Impulsive’ ”

As a teenager myself, I experience firsthand the sudden urges to respond to snapchats at a red light or skip to the next song on my phone. So I understand the misconceived notion—that taking your eyes off the road for a second or less is a relatively innocuous action. But it’s these several milliseconds that could change someone’s life forever, or worse, your own life…or worse, death. Think about the impact that checking a text has on others now with a, hopefully, new perspective.

While distracted driving is a serious issue, and while I could fill pages with my thoughts on it, I couldn’t help but think about another issue many teens (and people in general) have faced that is more or less out of their control. Given that the outline of this contest is to “practice critical and reflective thinking,” and “connect ideas, insights and opinions with what [has been] read,” I think that it is appropriate to share all that I have been able to think about recently, despite what I have been reading.

Reflecting on the article about texting and driving, I found it hard to concentrate on the issue that was presented. Rather, my mind kept drifting off to think about how many lives have been affected in the past two weeks. We can thank…

Santino Legan, who decided that an annual garlic festival with four decades of history would be a suitable setting to open fire on young children and their families,

Patrick W. Crusius, who decided to take the issue of illegal immigration into his own hands and target Mexicans in his mission,

and Connor Betts, who decided to kill his biological sister, as well as eight other bystanders with a pistol with a rapid fire rate, for shaking up the country and instilling a new level of fear in US citizens.

We shouldn’t be scared to go shopping, nor should we be scared to enjoy a garlic festival, let alone grabbing a drink with friends. Yet, averaging more than a shooting a day since the start to 2019 is enough for the masses to be “scared.”

Still aligning with the outline of Round 3, which asks for “a personal story,” I have two.

The first one is that tomorrow, I am going to a music festival with my friends and a small part of me is afraid, which shouldn’t have to be the case. The second one is that I am living in a time where unnecessary fear has accrued as a result of lacking administration. In fact, we are all living that story, every day.

I hope that my usage of this platform can help spark discussion and ultimately lead to change.

#endgunviolence

“McDonald believes the distracted driving will decrease when society accepts the danger as a norm. For example, smoking, drunken driving and not wearing seat belts are all risky behaviors that have been reduced as people have internalized the message that they are dangerous.”

McDonald’s claim that risky behaviors like distracted driving will decrease when we internalize the danger behind those behaviors seems to make sense. After all, most people do not put their hand back on the stove after being burned once. However, as the article acknowledges, we already know that we shouldn’t take a call, eat, or daydream while driving, yet we still do it. There’s a gap between knowing something is dangerous, or filling in the correct bubble on a permit test, and internalizing its danger and choosing not to drive distracted.

Maybe a clue to this gap lies in how drivers education teaches danger. After an hour and a half of writing down boring rules in our notebooks (if you are parking uphill with a curb, point the wheels away from the curb…), my driving instructor would play the next episode of a safety film produced by the California Highway Patrol, and it was magic. When the lights came off, our heads would perk up, and we’d all spend the next half hour with our eyes glued on the screen. We couldn’t get enough of the vivid, greater-than-life depiction of high school. After a wild night partying, virtuous teens would make the mistake of driving drunk instead of calling a taxi. While still having wild fun in the car, what was about to happen next would ruin their lives forever. A bump in the road or a patch of ice on a bridge would send the vehicle flipping through the air or spinning out of control. Teens would be rushed to the hospital, and police would later interrogate and arrest some of them. The driver of the car that fateful night would see their friends disappear and forever receive only hateful glances from every direction. Teachers and parents would come on the screen and talk about the bright future the unfortunate victims once had. A scientist would recreate the exact scene of the accident, including a slow-motion of the car flipping through the air, talking about how if they had missed that one pothole, bump, or patch of ice, they might have ended up okay. The movie would end with an officer reminding us sternly that accidents from distracted driving could happen to anyone at any time.

We didn’t think that would happen to us. Of course, some people choose to drive drunk, and maybe cars can flip that many times in the air. But that was entertainment, and it wasn’t us. We were good students who knew the rules of the road, and we had been driving for months without an accident. Perhaps one issue is that the movies seemed too exaggerated, too un-lifelike.

California Highway Patrol must have thought this as well because their older driver’s ed films tried to be more realistic. Red Asphalt, for instance, had been put together from footage of real accidents. While some experts argue that those horror films have lost their effectiveness due to the widespread violence in video games and movies, many drivers education instructors believe that the gorier films are more effective. Most people, including Tom Marshall, a spokesman for the California Highway Patrol, acknowledge that the film won’t permanently change driving habits, but “if it can get kids to focus on it for the first month or two [that they’re driving], it has done its job.” Whether gore is more effective than drama is up to debate, but educational films’ shift to emotion shows that shock was not effective enough in changing long-term behavior. Indeed, there’s a value in safety films to increase attention in the first few months of supervised driving. However, it seems that after that supervision, we think that those films can’t be us, and return to bad habits.

Unfortunately, this trend holds for other behavior as well. We think that the past will repeat itself in the future, which can lure us into a false sense of security. We are aware of economic bubbles, most famously the Dutch tulip-mania, yet a lot of us continued buying houses up to the Great Recession because the price had risen for the past few years. We cheat on exams because we haven’t been caught before and “only the bad cheaters get caught.” One of my favorite statistics is that 73% of drivers think they’re better than average. After a shock like a bubble collapse or getting caught on a test, we may swear we’ve learned our lesson and change our behavior only to return to bad habits days or weeks later. We’re creatures of habit, and it’s easier not to start a bad habit than to get out of one.

Maybe no driving film can pull us away from already-developed technology addiction. However, there is still another issue on the table: driver’s ed movies may promote the behavior they intend to prevent by glamorizing danger. As journalist Martin Smith notes, Red Asphalt may be one of the most-viewed movies ever, and that may be due to reasons of entertainment, not education.

In his riveting memoir This Boy’s Life, Tobias Wolff speaks to the risk of glamorizing harmful behavior. The World War II dramas he watched are hauntingly similar to the scare films of today, “always with a somber narrator to remind us that this wasn’t make-believe but actual history, that what we were seeing had really happened and could happen again.” While Wolff acknowledges that the depiction of the Nazis’ downfall produced “glimpses of humiliation and loss,” they only lasted a few minutes. Wolff believes that the point of the show was not to discourage Nazism: “the real point was to celebrate snappy uniforms and racy Mercedes staff cars and great marching, thousands of boots slamming down together on cobbled streets while banners streamed overhead and strong voices sang songs that stirred our blood though we couldn’t understand a word. These shows instructed us further in the faith we were already beginning to hold: that victims are contemptible, no matter how much people pretend otherwise, that it is more fun to be inside than outside, to be arrogant than to be kind, to be with a crowd than to be alone.”

Certainly, not everyone is driven to dangerous behavior in the way that Wolff was. However, the risk of glamorizing danger is real. In one famous example, the DARE program may have encouraged drug use through its aggressive scare tactics.

The dilemma of human nature is that we learn more from putting our hand on the stove than being lectured about the dangers of burning ourselves. Even when we get burned, our learning may be temporary. However, we can’t afford to burn ourselves when it comes to driving. Therefore, the paradox of safety education is to make the danger seem real and instill fear but not to glamorize risky behavior. The gap between learning and internalizing is how much we believe in the world inside the television screen. Through the difference between greater-than-life reality TV and my experiences in the world outside my window, the world on the screen seems slightly foreign. At times, it can even be enticing.

Sources on the effectiveness of Red Asphalt: https://medium.com/@martinjsmith/the-cinematic-genius-of-the-red-asphalt-road-splatter-series-5289d382ffa3 https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2003-jan-21-me-wheel21-story.html

Due to my research, I have found many surprising things about being on your phone while driving. At any given time in the day, 660,000 are attempting to use their phones while behind the wheel of an automobile. To me, this stat shows how many potential accidents there could be on any given day. Another stat that worries me is that 1 in 4 car accidents every day are caused by texting while driving. If we just tried to put down our phones while driving we could reduce the amount of deaths and injuries every day caused by distracted driving.

As a teen I see lots of people risking there lives and mine in cars where texting and driving is normal. I have never had any type or urge myself but that would be mainly due to my minimal use of my phone other than for calling or texting (I dont pick up often). Mainly I keep my phone on silent due to attending classes 5 days a week on top of working. To avoid interrupting situations like my phone going off in class or getting a call at work I’m not supposed to answer. I agree with the statement it goes farther than just the cell phone as well and that our actions that involve anything other than focusing on the road can be detrimental to our lives and it’s not acknowledged enough. Driving is treated lightly until an accident happens and if it is escaped it is regretted when it should not had even taken place. We live our lives through trial and error and it is a dangerous way to live. It’s a way that can end our lives at any moment. It’s like you have to come out lucky to have had the ability to reflect and change your ways but everyone doesn’t get those chances. Your life can be taken away from you at any second without you knowing and texting while driving in a vehicle that doesn’t have 100% protection rate is a risk it may only be 9% now but that can add up the more it’s not changed. -DeMarcus Kilgo kwhs wshs NC

Hey DeMarcus! You are so right that this is a big problem. During my commute, I literally see so many drivers looking down at their phones. Thank you for sharing your perspective. I especially like your line “We live our lives through trial and error and it is a dangerous way to live.” If we just acknowledged the statistics and used some common sense, we could avoid this experimental lifestyle and not put our lives or those of others at risk. Stay safe!

Texting while driving is a horrific yet common act that many still do every day on their commute. While this is not the only distraction a driver faces, it is one of the major causes of distracted driving. While the solution of setting one’s phone on the side seems viable, it is a natural instinct for people nowadays to pick up and check their phones. Even preventions such as turning on “Do Not Disturb” might not work in some cases. Indeed, it does block out notifications, but it still doesn’t prevent the actual act of a driver from reaching their phone to check on it. Despite that these simple approaches are great in preventing some of the causes of distracted driving, they do not cover all aspects of it.

Therefore, I propose a new solution to reduce the amount of distracted driving: tracking sensors on frame glasses or prescription glasses of the driver, which the driver would either wear when they get into the car or in their daily lives. Because being distracted refers to any aspect of not focusing on the road, a sensor on the glasses can detect a movement that is unnatural to driving, such as looking down below the dashboard and not onto the road or mirrors. These driver glasses can connect to a wireless relay box when they enter the car, and once on the road, whenever the driver looks down into an unnatural position, the relay box will beep back in consideration of how alert the driver is on the road, beeping louder the more unaware the driver is through its position of the sensors. We can expand this idea by disabling the phone when it senses movement of the driver trying to beat the system by raising the phone on top of the dashboard or just the standard looking down below the dashboard and reaching for the smartphone.

One might say this system is complicated, as one can just turn off their phone in general, but constantly shutting ones’ phone down may become annoying, which might result in the driver giving up the habit as a whole. On the other hand, studies from the NCBI have found that noise induction will most likely make a person respond accordingly to their surroundings, as the human race has evolved in humanity from nature, so humans will generally react to a sound to perceive danger. Therefore, we can use this ideology to direct our eyes to only focus on the road. Although this system might not beat out all the distractions a driver might face — such as daydreaming or getting distracted by the outer world — it still blocks out the core causes of distracted driving, which include checking the phone, eating, and arguing with someone else about a Spotify Playlist. I believe this innovation can help our society immensely, especially younger generations who are attached to smartphones, as this technology will help cut down their loss of attention on the road.

As Catherine McDonald explained when she stated, “What’s important to remember about driving is that you’re making decisions not just about yourself, but about other cars that you’re not controlling,” driving is a privilege given to us that requires a large amount of responsibility and control. When driving, it is your responsibility to keep yourself safe and to not do anything rash that would risk the safety of the fellow drivers.

There’s no doubt that we’ve all heard the phrase, “Don’t text while driving!” numerous times in the past. We’ve all seen the consequences of behaviors such as these, and yet, why do people still do it? Despite knowing just how dangerous and risky these actions may be, why do thousands of drivers do this on a daily basis? Perhaps the thought of “that’ll never happen to me because I’ll be careful” deceives us, but the severity of the situation cannot be taken lightly.

Many different ideas have been suggested to the public over recent years, with recent ones including a Do Not Disturb While Driving addition to the iPhones, and Auto Apply/Android Auto for newer models of cars. Although we’ve definitely all tried these methods at some point, our temptations may get the better of us at the end of the day. So is there really any method that can prevent texting while driving for sure? As of right now, there really isn’t. But that doesn’t mean that there can’t be one in the near future.

The only way to solve a problem is to get rid of the source of the problem itself. The source of the problem would be the phones, right? The easiest and best thing to do in this scenario would be to remove the phones from plain sight, so the driver could focus on driving. As John Heywood once said, “Out of sight, out of mind.” By implementing current technology, there could be a surefire way to prevent texting while driving. In the car, there could be a compartment installed, and that compartment would be there for one purpose: to hold your phone. However, this compartment would be directly connected to the car’s ability to move, and without the device being inside the compartment, the car wouldn’t be able to be put into drive. To prevent any possible loophole, the compartment would also have a sensor installed, and this sensor would be used to detect that the device has been put into the compartment. After the device has been placed into the compartment, it wouldn’t be able to be removed until the proper destination has been reached. The phone would then be released from the constraints of the compartment, and you could go on to do whatever you needed to do safely. In case of an emergency, the phone would be automatically linked to the car via bluetooth, and with a single sentence, you would be able to call 911. The compartment would then send a GPA location directly to the police, and within minutes, they would arrive to help you in your time of need. With the addition of a new gadget like this, driving while texting would no longer be a hindrance. Everyone could drive safely, and they could rest assured knowing that something as rash as texting while driving wouldn’t be the cause of injury or fatality.

If there’s anything that commenting on KWHS has taught me, it’s that nothing is impossible. Young scholars from all over the world are coming up with new innovative ways to make the world a much better place everyday, and with the current technology that we possess, creating new things is no longer a burden. With the combined innovative thoughts from scholars all over the world, problems such as these will no longer cause us so much harm. It’s all up to whether we’re willing to work together to achieve this goal.

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The Real Reason You Shouldn’t Text While Driving

Image: Alexandre Boucher/Unsplash

We all know the feeling. You’re driving and have a thought you need to write down. Or you realize you forgot to reply to an email, or a friend texts you. You think to yourself, Should I do it? Should I text, or email, or jot down my notes while driving? I know it’s wrong … but I could make an exception just this once.

But it’s never “just once.” In fact, I was in this exact situation when the idea for this article came to me. So, recently while driving to work, I deemed it my ethical responsibility to explain what’s really going on. Of course, I first jotted down my ideas in my phone—after pulling over into an empty parking space.

Most crashes are caused by people like you and me who think they can pay attention to the road and do something else at the same time. 

It’s All About Attention

Everyone knows that texting and driving is a terrible idea, but few understand why . Taking your eyes off the road has obvious disadvantages. But the real story behind the danger of texting while driving is far more interesting: It degrades our attention.

Over 90 percent of crashes are the fault of drivers. The most frequent driver mistake is “recognition error,” which encompasses “driver’s inattention, internal and external distractions, and inadequate surveillance.” In other words, most crashes are not caused by flagrantly intoxicated people, nor that aggressive driver who will do whatever it takes to get to their destination one minute earlier. Most crashes are caused by people like you and me who think they can pay attention to the road and do something else at the same time.

When you are engaged in conversation, be it on a call or texting—or even with someone else in the car—your attention is divided. And as fallible humans, we only have so much attention to spare. In fact, while there are very few magic numbers in life, there is a magic number associated with how many things we can attend to at once. And it’s not a lot.

In 1956, cognitive psychologist George Miller found that people can hold about seven chunks of information, give or take two (or, five to nine) , in their minds at one time. Today we call this working memory, and research since Miller’s time has found that the maximum number of elements that we can process at once may be even more limited, at only three to five chunks .

In all the driving-while-talking research, there is little to no difference in impairment between drivers using hands-free and hand-held phones. 

In 2001, before texting while driving had invaded the public sphere and the BlackBerry had become the smartest phone around, two researchers linked our limited attention to driving impairment. They found that when drivers were engaged in conversation, drivers’ attention was drawn away from the visual scene, even without any actual visual impairment. In other words, even when we are looking at the road, we don’t perceive it as well as when we are not distracted. We are seeing, but not perceiving. The underlying phenomenon is the same as the famed “ invisible gorilla ” experiment.

Phone Calls Are Worse Than No Calls (and Just as Bad as Drunk Driving)

A study using a driving simulator found that participants who engaged in hands-free phone conversations took longer to react to a car slowing down ahead of them compared to those who drove without conversation. This driving-while-talking effect was exacerbated when there was high traffic density, because there were more attentional demands on the driver.

Research also shows that when people are talking on the phone, crash risk quadruples . Drivers who are on a call are about equally at risk as is someone driving at the legal limit of blood alcohol content. In one simulated-driving environment, drivers who were on their phones got into significantly more accidents than the drunk drivers.

Importantly, in all the driving-while-talking research, there is little to no difference in impairment between drivers using hands-free and hand-held phones. Because it’s an issue of attention—and there is only minimal extra distraction when picking up or holding a phone—it doesn’t really help to use a hands-free device. Merely thinking about something other than the road is enough to strain attention and increase your risk of a crash.

Despite this, intuition tells us that as long as our eyes are on the road, we perceive what’s in front of us. It’s easy to imagine the risks of removing your eyes from the road and your hands from the steering wheel, but not as easy to see the risks of divided attention. This is likely part of the reason (or, shall I say, driving force ) behind the ill-informed policies that prohibit hands-on talking and texting but allow hands-free conversations.

Texting Is Slightly Worse Than Calling, and Passengers and Deep Thoughts Are Almost as Bad

It is no surprise that texting feels worse. When we text, our eyes are averted, and of course we need to see to drive. (Step 1: See. Step 2: Perceive.) I don’t need to tell you that it is not a good idea to drive wearing a blindfold.

But there is more to texting than meets the eye. While talking on the phone puts a strain on attention (interfering with step 2), texting fully switches our attention. It is not just divided, but completely taken over (getting in the way of both step 1 and even more so step 2). But while texting is indeed worse than conversing while driving, it is not by much .

Some researchers—using real cars, not simulators—found that hands-free phone calls are similarly distracting as conversations with another person in the car. The more complex the conversation, the more the driver’s attention was strained and their driving ability impaired. The researchers even found impairment for what they call “internal activity”—simply thinking about a lot while driving.

  So Why Do We Drive Distracted?

First of all, distracted driving doesn’t feel dangerous. We may recognize on a cognitive level that distracted driving is stupid, but we have no accompanying visceral feeling of fear, no associated emotion to guide our decision-making in the moment of temptation. Our brains do such a good job making us feel like we’re in charge that we don’t realize it’s all an illusion until it’s too late. If our hearts started racing as soon as our attention started to drift, we might be more inclined to stay focused.

Furthermore, we feel immune to the risks that affect other people. Researchers who study texting while driving find that their participants “have observed others driving erratically while using a cell phone, but these participants rarely, if ever, thought that their own driving was impaired when they used the cell phone.” And despite the fact that there is no benefit to practice (people who regularly use their cell phone while driving perform no better in studies than those with less real-life experience), the belief that we can manage persists. Consistent with this, three out of four people think they are above average drivers (a statistical impossibility). We are simply overconfident in our abilities.

Finally, many of us have a lot of experience making bad driving decisions and not suffering any consequences. Most times that we text and drive we are lucky and don’t end up in an accident. Brains respond to feedback, and when the only feedback we’ve gotten so far is that texting and driving hasn’t led to an accident, it feels reasonable to infer that we are able to do it safely. We imagine that the past will predict the future and ignore the actual risk. But when the stakes include fatality and the benefit of texting is so marginal, it’s not just short-sighted to take the chance—it’s simply stupid.

We may recognize on a cognitive level that distracted driving is stupid, but we have no accompanying visceral feeling of fear, no associated emotion to guide our decision-making in the moment of temptation.

Don’t Trust Your Gut

Since we have a false sense of security and don’t feel like we are behaving dangerously, we need better cues to keep ourselves in check. If you’re thinking to yourself, “I want to use better cues … how can I?” then here are some tips from similarly challenging behavioral problems.

Watch the most gruesome car accident video you can find on YouTube and play it in your head every time you think of reaching for the phone. Take a ride in AT&T’s #itcanwait VR driving simulator and make a public commitment on social media. Make a rule that you will never use your phone while in the driver’s seat, and attach the rule to a contingency contract where you accept some form of awful punishment if you break the rule. Simply turn on Apple’s “do not disturb while driving” or Samsung’s “in-traffic reply” so that you can drive knowing that anyone who texts you will know why you’re not immediately responding. Or better yet, don’t even make it possible to use your phone while driving—put it in the trunk! Whatever you do, don’t trust your intuitions, and don’t wait for the moment of temptation to decide whether or not to pick up the phone.

The good news is that you won’t even have to worry about this in a few years because cars will just drive themselves . In the meantime, if you are the one in control of two tons of heavy machinery (the weight of an average car), remember the real reason why it’s a terrible idea to text while driving. Or to have a conversation. Or to get distracted in any other way. It’s not just about keeping your eyes on the road, or your hands on the steering wheel.

The real reason to stay on task while driving is to protect your most precious, most limited resource: attention .

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Home — Essay Samples — Law, Crime & Punishment — Distracted Driving — Thesis Statement For Texting And Driving

Thesis Statement for Texting and Driving

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Published: Mar 25, 2024

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Dangers of Texting while Driving Research Paper

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Introduction

Recommendations, works cited.

The popularity of mobile phones has brought about a revolution in the way people do things. Most of this revolution has been in the way people communicate. Today, communication has become instant even for people in different parts of the world. With people needing to keep in touch with their loved ones, business associates and acquaintances, mobile devices have become an irreplaceable part of life.

However, this popularity has come with unintentional and even risky repercussions. According to researchers, communicating in mobile phones is linked to an upsurge in unfocused driving. This act of distracted driving in return leads to injury and possible loss of lives through road accidents.

If this is to be stopped, there is need to move with urgency and dissuade people from using their mobile phones while driving. This research paper looks at the dangers of texting while driving. The research paper will present some statistics to prove that texting while driving is one of the biggest contributors of road accidents in American roads. (Federal Communications Commission)

According to a report released by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), drivers who get distracted contribute to about 16% of the deadly accidents happening in our roads. Further, the NHTSA estimates that distracted driving was a direct cause of 5,800 deaths and almost 500,000 injuries in 2008 alone.

According to findings of a study conducted by AAA, almost half of American youth admit that they often text while driving. The most saddening thing is that majority of these teens think that there is nothing wrong for them to text while driving. Given that texting while driving is a leading contributor of distraction for drivers and by looking at the current levels of injury and loss, something needs to be done with urgency. (FCC)

Today, so much literature has been dedicated to the issue of texting while driving. The one thing that all the available literature concludes is that texting while driving leads to lack of concentration hence impairing driver’s abilities.

One undisputed thing that happens with a texting driver is that he has to take his eyes off the road to concentrate on the text message. The amount of time that the driver takes to concentrate on the road is enough to miss a changing light or fail to notice a driver who has abruptly stopped in front of him. Additionally, when a driver is texting, his mind has to be on the message he is writing or studying.

This definitely bars the driver from thinking in a swift manner and compromises his impulse reaction. The most probable thing therefore is that the driver would be slow in reacting to a situation on the road since his thoughts are engaged elsewhere. This lack of concentration is the cause of many accidents happening today. (McElroy)

According to reports, a person texting while driving has a 600% more likelihood of causing an accident than the person under the influence of drugs. In addition, texting while driving produces a 23% chance of causing an accident. These statistics have been verified repeatedly through different studies. One such report by an association called Students Against Destructive Decisions (SADD) identifies texting as one of the worst road mistakes that drivers commit.

The most worrying thing is that while 37% of teenagers admit that texting while driving makes them to be distracted, they are yet to stop this habit. In the same study, an alarming figure of 46% admitted that the only time they get distracted while driving is when they are texting. According to analysts, texting is considered a serious public security issue. As all this is happening, law enforcement agencies are yet to come up with a law that bans text messaging among drivers. (Austin)

Based on studies done on the subject, insurance companies are slowly devising ways to reduce this hazard. Some of the rules include banning the use of mobile phones while driving. While parents are supposed to give guidance to their children, an amazing 52% of teenagers confess that their parents would never punish them for texting while driving.

On the other hand, only a paltry 36% believe that their parents would be concerned if they texted while driving. Most young people say that their parents have a great influence on the way they drive. Not surprisingly, three quarters of teens say that their parents use their mobile devices while driving. (Vogel)

Although there are no federal laws regulating texting while driving, drivers should first think of their own safety even in the absence of the law. Drivers who are in their teens should be given instructions not to use their mobile devices while driving. Before issuance of a new license, drivers should be taught about the dangers of taking their attention out of the road.

Mostly, a child’s biggest mentor is the parent. If parents would stay off texting while driving, their children would follow their example. It is advisable for parents to be a good example to their children by pulling off the road when they have to text or make a phone call. In reality, it is not everyone who knows the dangers of texting while driving.

Therefore, it is important for enlightened people to tell others about the dangers of texting while driving. No matter how urgent a text is, one should be wise enough to know that it is not as important as their life and that of other road users. However, the most effective way of ensuring that text messaging do not continue to be a menace in our roads is to come up with a kind of technology that jams cell phones while one is driving. The government should therefore do everything to ensure that such a law is passed. (Pinkston)

The magnitude of carnage on our roads has been on the rise in recent years. Most of these accidents have been detected to be caused by lack of concentration on the part of the drivers. Texting while driving is one cause for lack of concentration among many drivers. Many young people claim that they can efficiently text while driving. However, all research done on this field proves that it is impossible to do the two without losing concentration.

Texting while driving is placed in the same category as drinking and driving. This therefore calls for more education on the use of mobile devices while on the road to reduce cases of accidents caused by lack of concentration. This duty first starts with parents who have to set an example to their children by not texting while driving. On top of this, the government needs to come up with legislation that outlaw the use of mobile devices while one is driving.

Austin, M. Texting While Driving: How dangerous is it? -Feature , 2009. Web.

Federal Communications Commission. FCC Consumer Advisory. The Dangers of Texting While Driving , 2009. Web.

McElroy, G. Simulator Warns Students of Dangers of Texting While Driving , 2010. Web.

Pinkston, L. Dangers of Texting While Driving , 2010. Web.

Vogel, S. Teen Driver Menace. Text-Messaging Studies Show Texting While Driving is Epidemic , 2007. Web.

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IvyPanda. (2018, July 15). Dangers of Texting while Driving. https://ivypanda.com/essays/dangers-of-texting-while-driving/

"Dangers of Texting while Driving." IvyPanda , 15 July 2018, ivypanda.com/essays/dangers-of-texting-while-driving/.

IvyPanda . (2018) 'Dangers of Texting while Driving'. 15 July.

IvyPanda . 2018. "Dangers of Texting while Driving." July 15, 2018. https://ivypanda.com/essays/dangers-of-texting-while-driving/.

1. IvyPanda . "Dangers of Texting while Driving." July 15, 2018. https://ivypanda.com/essays/dangers-of-texting-while-driving/.

Bibliography

IvyPanda . "Dangers of Texting while Driving." July 15, 2018. https://ivypanda.com/essays/dangers-of-texting-while-driving/.

• car insurance

Texting While Driving: What It Means for Your Insurance Rates

Learn about the impact of texting while driving on your insurance rates and the legal penalties you might face. (Updated August 2024)

While it can be tempting for drivers to check their phones or respond to someone as soon as they get a text message, it’s not worth the risk. The personal and legal consequences of texting and driving can stain your record and affect car insurance rates.

Learn more about texting while driving insurance impacts and potential legal penalties you may face in your state.

• What Are the Legal Penalties for Texting While Driving in Different States?

As people become more reliant on smartphones, this dependency also affects driving behaviors. Distracted driving is a leading factor in motor vehicle accidents in the United States, with 289,310 people injured in  crashes caused by distracted drivers in 2022.

To combat the dangers of texting while driving, states have legal ramifications that apply to the  use of electronic devices .

Fines for texting while driving vary by state, but you could be looking at a hefty financial penalty when you reach for your phone. For example, you can be  fined up to $10,000 in Alaska for texting or using a handheld phone while behind the wheel. If you injure someone or cause an accident that leads to a fatality, fines can even reach $250,000.

Several other states are also strict and have higher fines for texting, such as:

• Oregon : Up to $1,000 for first offense
• Colorado : $300 for first offense; up to $1,000 if the texting causes an accident with bodily injury

Some states’ fines are more moderate and fall between $100 and $250 for an initial offense, including  California ,  Massachusetts ,  Ohio , and  New York . However, other states have lower fines for first-time offenses, with higher penalties for subsequent texting-while-driving violations. Examples include:

• Nevada : $50 for the first offense; $100 for a second offense within seven years of the first violation; $250 for all following offenses
• Arizona : $75-$149 for the first offense; up to $250 for all following offenses
• Texas : Up to $99 for the first offense; up to $200 for all following offenses
• Illinois : $75 for the first offense; $100 for the second offense; $125 for the third offense; $150 for all following offenses
• Florida :  $30 for the first offense; $60 for the second offense within five years of the first violation
• Georgia :  $50 for the first offense; $100 for the second offense; $150 for a third offense when within 24 months of the initial offense

Points on Driving Record/Suspended License

You could also be facing points on your driving record and a possible suspended license for driving while distracted by your phone. For example, a violation for texting behind the wheel in Ohio racks up two points on your record. The second offense is three points, and the third and subsequent offenses are four points. If you reach 12 points within a two-year period, the state can  suspend your driver's license .

Similarly, New York adds  five points to your driving record for texting or using a handheld electronic device while driving. Receiving 11 points within 18 months is enough to suspend your driver's license.

“ The personal and legal consequences of texting and driving can stain your record and affect car insurance rates.   ” 

Prison Time

In  all but two states , texting while driving is against the law. If you break the law, have subsequent violations within a set period of time, or cause a traffic crash, you may have to serve prison time.

If you cause a fatal car accident in Illinois due to texting behind the wheel, you can get a prison sentence of up to three years. Likewise, you may face up to  six months in jail in Arizona for causing a motor vehicle crash that leads to death or serious injury.

• How Does Texting While Driving Influence Your Car Insurance Rates?

Wondering how texting affects car insurance rates? Depending on your state’s laws and your auto insurance company, getting a ticket for texting while driving can increase your insurance premium. In many states, insurance rates are likely to go up for a moving violation — particularly if it’s not your first ticket.

Texting while driving violations can add points to your driving record, making you more of a liability to insurance companies. Engaging in risky cell phone use increases the risk of an accident. Additionally, multiple violations show that you have a pattern of reckless behavior behind the wheel, which can bump up your insurance rate.

• Can Texting While Driving Lead to Criminal Charges?

Yes. Handheld cell phone use, including texting, can lead to criminal charges. Depending on your state’s laws and individual circumstances, people who choose to text while driving and cause an accident, injuries, or death could be charged with:

• Reckless driving
• Negligent homicide
• Vehicular manslaughter
• What Are the Long-Term Effects of Having a Texting While Driving Violation on Your Driving Record?

If you are caught texting while operating a motor vehicle, there are long-term consequences that can affect you years after the violation. For one, you will likely have higher insurance rates and have to pay more than those without any violations. Multiple offenses could increase premiums even more and possibly lead to insurance companies canceling your policy.

Also, you will have demerit points on your driving record. Depending on how many points you had before the texting-while-driving ticket and your state’s laws, your license could be suspended. Without reliable transportation, the violation could impact your job, family, and social life. Some states may also require offenders to take classes on defensive driving for texting tickets.

Aside from criminal charges, texting while driving can lead to a civil lawsuit against you if you cause an accident. This means you could be held liable for medical bills and other damages that resulted from the crash, leaving you with long-term financial struggles.

• How Can You Fight a Texting While Driving Charge, and What Are the Implications for Doing So?

If you choose to fight a texting while driving charge, you will need to appear in court in person to argue your case. While working with an experienced lawyer can help, it can be difficult to get the ticket dismissed. However, these are common defenses that could lead to a lower fine or dismissal of the ticket:

• Inadequate evidence
• Mistaken identity
• Making an emergency call
• Driving on private property
• Using hands-free or voice-activated technology

Keep in mind that losing in court means you must pay attorney and court fees and face the penalties for your violation.

• Frequently Asked Questions

Yes, texting while driving violations means that insurance companies will see you as more of a liability than other drivers. That can make it difficult to find affordable car insurance coverage or to renew your policy at the same rate.

Insurance prices change daily, so the best way to get the right insurance for the right price is to compare and shop often.  Getting a custom comparison is quick, easy, and always free with us.

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