YouTube dramatizes danger of texting and driving

William Atkins
Wednesday, 02 September 2009 18:18

Opinion and Analysis

A recent study in Virginia (U.S.A.) showed that truck drivers who text while driving are 23 times more likely to be in an accident than drivers who don’t text while driving. See the details of the study in the iTWire article “Texting and driving may be a thing of the past.”

In the United States, over 40,000 people are killed each and every year from motorized vehicle accidents.

It has been reported that of this number, about 25% of the accidents occur because people are distracted or inattentive while driving, such as when they are texting and not paying attention to their driving.

That, means about 10,000 people are killed for such things as texting, emailing, reading a book, surfing the Internet, shaving, applying makeup, and other such distractions that should not be occurring while driving.

Motorists should be concentrating entirely on driving and not on other things. Although cars are often portrayed by automobile manufacturers as safe, they are only completely safe when they are parked.

They are not inherently safe when being driven at 100 kilometers per hour (60 miles per hour), and especially not safe when traveling at that speed with an inattentive driver texting someone and not looking at the road.

Many, many studies show the dangers of texting and driving. Several are included in the WebMD.com article "Teens All Thumbs When Texting and Driving."

But, it's not just teenagers that are dangerous when texting and driving, it is all people, of all ages, who are dangerous when doing things that distract themselves from their responsibility of driving as safely as possible while on the road.