Texting, talking, reading, laughing...Driving Too?

It's hard enough to balance texting, talking, reading, and laughing all at the same time. For the average person, this is distracting and difficult to do, especially for teenage girls. Then imagine that girl behind the wheel! This may have played a role in a recent accident that killed five NY teenage girls.

In the NY accident, the police reported that the driver of the vehicle sent and received a text message 38 seconds prior to the accident, meaning that it is very likely that she was typing her response, looked up, and the rest is history.

On my daily hour and a half commute, I have observed some unbelievable acts on the road. Some people forget they are on the road and not at home on the couch! The worst I have ever seen was a balancing act of smoking, drinking a nice hot cup of coffee, and reading the paper! This was the driver, and traffic was moving! Ninety percent of the people, that I observe, that make mistakes, which result in all of the 'close calls', are a result of cell phone usage. With text messaging becoming more common, to send a text message is a thousand times more dangerous than normal talking! It takes two hands, and the need to look down and type, and while driving this equates to no hands on the wheel, and eyes down.

I am as guilty as anyone else on the road using the phone. I have years of experience, and am not a teenage girl, but it is still a distraction. People need to learn from the tragic event in NY, and understand that cell phone usage and text messaging should not occur behind the wheel. Unfortunate as it is to say, this will not be the first or last fatality that occurs from texting behind the wheel. The hope is for people to come to the reality that driving is the number one priority while driving, and that the person waiting to receive a text or phone call, will still be there after arriving.