Distracted While Driving

While pulling up to a red light and you look to the right and to the left, off hand one of the people next you will either be reading a map, reading directions, texting, holding a phone, or even reading a newspaper. The light turns green, and they don't stop what they're doing, but also have no problem stepping on the gas. Last time I checked, watching the road while driving was a pretty typical thing to do. Now, it's rare when you don't find someone completely distracted by something else while driving.

It can be very nerve wracking when you're you doing 65 mph on the highway and drive by someone also doing 65mph, but they're looking at their phone while texting. What's stopping them from just swaying over into your lane, and pushing you off the road? There has been much speculation by law enforcers about this problem, and talk about putting an end to it. Many states have already enforced this law, while many haven't. However, I've seen many people drive right by a police officer and probably not even know they've driven by one since they were too busy not looking at the road. I always think to myself, "how many people need to die before they'll fix this problem?" Why do we have to be at risk for someone else's stupidity?

According to the Distracted Driving Summit in Washington, there were 6,000 distracted drivers in 2008 who were involved in deadly car accidents. With text messaging being one of the top forms of communication for people between the ages of 16 - 25, it's clear as to why this is a problem. You'd like to think that half of the reason there are so many people text messaging while driving is because of how easy texting has become, but this isn't the case. With most phones, you need to unlock the phone, click on the text messaging application, click the name of the receiver, and then type the message. The issue is, people have learned to do this with one hand, and very quickly. It is not quick enough to avoid a car accident though. People are under the misconception that taking their eyes off the road for the 5-10 seconds needed to finish the quick text message won't cause any problems, but what everyone is taught in Drivers Ed is that it only takes one second of taking your eyes off the road to cause or not avoid an accident.

Since those who have been a part of these accidents, or witnessed them don't seem to stop their irresponsible ways of distracting themselves while driving, other methods of prevention need to be put into place. A lot of GPS systems lock up while the vehicle is moving to prevent this distracting driver problem. Therefore, cell phone companies might want to consider the same type of technology. If most phones can actually host a GPS application that can track a speed limit, there is no reason why they can't freeze text messaging applications when the phone is sensing acceleration going over the average walking or running speed. While the distracted driving issue shouldn't be a cell phone carrier problem, the people who are causing these issues aren't being responsible for their own actions and are therefore endangering others.

Along with texting, there are people who will read directions, maps or even newspapers, especially when caught in traffic. They have the appearance of being too busy to pay attention to what's going on, on the road in front of them. If texting is going to hopefully be put to a stop by having a law banning text messaging while driving, then there should be a law against all distractions. Hopefully, the law enforcers and the congress in MA can put this problem to rest sooner rather than later. Too many lives are being lost due to the ignorance of distracted drivers.