Number of Teens Texting While Driving Out of Control?
Despite the increased awareness and publicity over the inherent dangers behind texting while driving, people are STILL doing it! What is worse, perhaps is that the culprits seem to fall (overwhelmingly so) into the teenage category of drivers, who are statistically the most inexperienced drivers on the road.
Smell a recipe for disaster cooking? I sure do.
When I was a teenager, cell phones were only just starting to emerge. And granted, while I now own a Blackberry and am tempted to check emails as well as send and receive texts while behind the wheel, I don’t do it. Why? Because my life and the lives of whoever happens to be traveling with me that day are far too valuable to risk something that can wait.
According to a recent article published on cnet news Pew Research conducted a survey of 800 teenagers ranging in age from 12 to 17 regarding their cell phone use in the car and discovered that a third of the cell phone users in the 16-year-old to 17-year-old age bracket admitted to texting while driving:
Though some teen drivers said they only text at a red light or will hand the phone over to a passenger to text, others didn’t seem to care about the risk. Pew found one high school boy who said he thinks texting while driving is “fine,” adding, “I wear sunglasses so the cops don’t see [my eyes looking down].” A high-school girl admitted that she texts “all the time,” and that “everybody texts while they drive…like when I’m driving by myself I’ll call people or text them cause I get bored.” [source]
WA state made it a secondary traffic offense to text and hold a cell phone while driving in 2008. Many people (not just teens) I see on my commutes still ignore the law. People must think they’re invulnerable or just don’t care if they endanger themselves or others. Just last weekend a 16-yr old girl who bought jewelry at my daughter’s store crashed and died while talking on her cell with her boyfriend, who heard her screams and the sounds of the crash. Then my daughter happenened to drive by later while emergency crews were still onscene. If you think you can live with injuring or killing another driver because you were texting while driving, see the video interview of Reggie Shaw, who killed 2 innocent men doing just that, at ut.zerofatalities.com/