Texting While Driving: The Risk is Real

Despite countless public service announcements, texting while driving awareness campaigns, and even laws against texting and driving, millions of people continue to ignore the risks and text, check email, and update social media while driving.

Why?

It seems as if, for many people, the risks just don't seem real. After all, everyone else seems to be texting and driving without consequence. Maybe these people think the PSAs are just overstating the risks, using scare tactics to keep people from texting and driving.

Others likely think that they are simply better drivers than those who are involved in distracted driving. They may believe that their ability to multitask outweighs the risks. After all, they only take their eyes off the road for a second, right?

And finally, some people are so connected to their smartphones, it becomes an addiction. They have their phones with them at all times, constantly checking for updates, replying to texts, browsing the web. For these people, shutting off the phone and placing it out of reach while driving feels like an emotional and physical impossibility.

Liz was one of these people. A bright, beautiful young woman was connected to her friends 24/7, tethered to her smartphone. But a texting while driving accident changed all of that:

Perhaps people feel asif injuries sustained in a texting while driving accident are simply the risk you run for constant connectivity. But what about people who don't text and drive--and are subsequently injured by a texting driver? Maybe a texting driver feels like a text is worth the risk, but is it fair to those who come across the path of a texting driver? Aimee's life has been changed forever as the result of another woman's decision to text and drive:

And you may remember the story of Courtney Ann Sanford, the woman who died in a collision seconds after updating her Facebook status to read, "The happy song makes me HAPPY!" It is her car shown in the image at the top of this blog post.

Before you think these stories are anomalies and that the risks associated with texting while driving are rare, take a look at some statistics from the National Highway Transportation Safety Administration website at distraction.gov:

• Engaging in tasks that use both manual and visual distraction, such as texting while driving, makes a driver three times more likely to be involved in an accident.
• The average length of time a driver's eyes are off the road when reading or sending a text is 5 seconds--long enough to travel the length of a football field.
• 25% of teens report that they respond to one or more texts every time they drive. Twenty percent of teens and 10% of their parents report that they engage in extended, multi-text conversations while driving.
• In 2012, at least 421,000 people were injured in distracted driving accidents. Another 3,328 were killed.
• Texting while driving is not exclusively a teen phenomenon. Drivers in their 20's make up 27% of those involved in fatal distracted driving accidents.

For more information about how texting while driving impairs a person's ability to drive safely, view our infographic comparing texting while driving to drunk driving.