Article Blog #5: Texting and Driving Do Not Mix

AAA Wants Ban on Texting While Driving

The American Automobile Association (AAA) is pushing for texting while driving to be banned in all 50 states by the year 2013. Specifically, the organization wants it to be illegal to read, write, or send text messages while driving a vehicle. Eighteen states, plus Washington DC, currently have laws banning text messaging while driving. Are these laws really necessary? Statistics seem to indicate that they could be. Roughly one out of five US drivers admitted to texting while driving at least once in a 30 day period. And a Virginia Tech study revealed that commercial truck drivers who text while on the road are 23 times more likely to be in a crash.

What we have here is another conflict between a new technology and our established society. While text messaging is not new as a technology, its widespread use is a recent development. For many people, text messaging has become a vital part of their life, a way to communicate with friends and family in times or places where a phone call is unnecessary or inappropriate. Some cell phone users send text messages more than they make phone calls. The conflict comes into play when those people start using text messaging in places that it should not be done. Driving is an activity that requires near-constant attention to the road. Brief glances to mirrors or to take a sip of a beverage don't affect driving too much, but sending a text message would require a driver to take their eyes off the road for several seconds. An average of 4.6 seconds, long enough to travel the length of a football field at 55 mph. Common sense tells most of us that taking one's eyes off the road for that length of time is too dangerous. But some people do it anyway, and it has already caused accidents and injuries.

The question is, does there need to be a law to ban texting while driving? Some would say no, but I disagree. Texting while driving has caused accidents, and charging drivers with reckless driving can only be done after the driver has already done something reckless that endangers other drivers. The new laws will serve as a deterrent, something that will hopefully make people think twice before taking their eyes off the road to compose a text message.

Additional Sources:
State needs law to ban texting while driving
Ban texting while driving