Walk down the hall at school. Take a glance around the classroom. Look when you’re out to eat. Anywhere you are and anywhere you go, there is usually someone on their cell phone texting. It seems harmless to multi-task and reply to a text message. However, it becomes harmful when one tries texting while driving.
It happens time and time again. A person believes that they can drive, get ready for work and eat, without it being a risk. It is rare to find a person who hasn’t done one of the two in their driving lifetime.
Now, however, there is an increasing amount of people who are texting while driving. If a person thinks that this act is harmless, then they are not thinking quite clearly.
Texting requires at least one hand to type and a glance at the phone to ensure that the correct words are being written. This means that drivers who are texting have one hand off of the steering wheel and are more than likely looking away from the road for a few seconds at a time. An accident can happen in a fraction of a second. Focusing on anything other than the road for even a second could have fatal results.
According to statistics from Edgarsynder.com, 21% of fatal car accidents every year involving drivers between the ages of 16 and 24 are due to cell phone usage. Texting resulted in roughly 1,000 car accidents in 2007. The Harvard Center for Risk Analysis found that 2,600 people die every year as a direct result of using cell phones.
Don’t be a statistic.
21: Percent of fatal car crashes involving teenagers between the ages of 16 and 19 were the result of cell phone usage each year.
50: Percent of all drivers between the ages of 18 and 24 are texting while driving.
1,000: Number of accidents involving 16-17 year old drivers caused by cell phone use in 2007.