Texting While Driving is extremely dangerous! In some states, it’s even illegal. Recent studies suggest that driving while texting is becoming more common for both adults and teens, which means more can be done to promote accident prevention and safety. To help curb this dangerous trend, start by taking a defensive driving course. Such courses do not cost much and prevent needless auto accidents as well as save lives.
Driving is already challenging enough. Adding texting to the scenario makes focusing on the road more difficult and, at the very least, distracts you from using your defensive driving skills. According to a report by Jennifer Guevin at CNET, a recent study found that “texting took a driver’s focus away from the road for an average of 4.6 seconds–enough time…to travel the length of a football field at 55 mph.” Wow! If we increase our speed to 75 miles per hour, which is common for many drivers, in 4.6 seconds we would have traveled 170 yards!! That’s really scary!!!
In addition to taking away your concentration from the road, texting while driving also creates blurry vision. Staring at a phone light and then back to the road can cause you to see spots or blur your perception. Did you ever think that since you are texting with one hand, you can easily drop the phone on the floor? Dropping the phone just adds to the dangers behind the wheel. You may look down quickly to search for the phone and this action takes your focus off the road. Trying to catch the phone as it falls may cause you to swerve the car off of the road.
As you can see, texting while driving can be distracting and even impairs your vision. If you still have doubts about texting while driving, just watch this video. It was put out by the traffic council in the UK. The content of this video is graphic and we recommend you be 18 or older to watch it.
Tags: accident prevention, defensive driving course, Driving Safety, texting while driving