Texting While Driving Is More Dangerous Than Driving

Texting while driving puts everyone in danger because it takes your attention away from the task of driving. According to the NHTSA (National Highway Traffic Safety Administration) in 2015 there were 3,477 deaths and another 391,000 injuries caused by distracted driving in the United States, and that’s just in one year. While this

Not only is texting while behind the wheel bad enough itself, many people compare the danger level to drunk driving. Driving while intoxicated at the same time is illegal, just as some believe texting while driving should be as well. Larry Copeland states that after a study was conducted at The University of Utah, it showed that driving with a blood-alcohol content of 0.08% is equal to texting and driving. If people were more aware of how closely related texting while driving and drunk driving are, it would help to inform all drivers on safety behind the wheel. Not only are distracted drivers harming themselves, yet they are putting every other driver on the road in the same dangerous position without realizing it.

Secondly texting while driving can put a loved one at risk. Texting while driving can put you and your passenger at risk. If you were to get in a accident because of texting and driving, you and your passenger can get hurt. In an article called 10 Programmatic Reason´s that will make you stop texting and driving right now it said ¨in

To investigate the dangers of texting while driving, a true experiment is needed to determine if texting is a cause of traffic accidents. A true experiment is thought to be the most accurate type of experimental research, and it is the only type that can establish a cause and effect relationship. Thus, a true experiment can find if texting is a cause that affects traffic accidents. To begin, the experiment will take place on a major road, located in an urban city because a large number of fatal traffic accidents occur in urban settings, when vehicles are traveling less than thirty miles per hour. Random assignment will be used to select participants, and place them into two equal groups, so the sample size is representative of age, ethnicity, and socioeconomic level. Random assignment helps eliminate bias between tech savvy teenagers and older adults, or the use of technology between different ethnicities, or income levels. The experiment will include a control and experimental group, and the manipulated variable is texting while driving. The control group will be instructed to drive through the mapped out course, without a cell phone present in the car. However, the experimental group will drive through the same course, with cell phones that are receiving text messages. The experimenters will have a camera in the car that helps them collect data from the both groups. Each driver will be evaluated on, the number of times they send a text message, the number of

“Text messaging … had the longest duration of eyes-off-road time of 4.6 seconds at a six second interval. This equates to a driver traveling the length of a football field at 55 miles per hour without looking at the roadway.” This statement was made by the Virginia Tech Transportation Institute when they did a texting while driving study (“Skip Menu”). Texting while driving has become a large problem in the United States and it is growing. There are about 1,600,000 accidents per year as a result of texting while driving. Texting while driving has become a bigger problem for teenagers than drinking while intoxicated. In an article Delthia Ricks wrote for Newsday, she says:

As a research shows, texting and driving is much worse than driving while drunk. When you drive drunk it makes your reaction time a little slower and throws your balance off a little bit. But on the other hand texting and driving is

The most dangerous between texting while driving and driving under the influence is texting while driving. From 2002 to 2011, driving while intoxicated numbers went down and texting while driving numbers went up (Oberman). Texting while operating a vehicle raises the risk eight times higher to cause a wreck. If people choose drinking and driving, it raises the risk four times higher to cause a wreck (Driving). When people drive out on the roads doing either drinking while driving or texting while driving, a crash could occur at any time. People texting and driving makes themselves take their eyes off the road longer because people focus on the message received and try to think of what the response message will say. Drunk drivers usually tend to speed up or slow down, while texters tend to swerve across the centerline (Texting). A person

magine being at an intersection, and just when you think no one is there, you proceed to step on the gas, and you get text from your friend saying “ Where you at bro?” thinking since it’s your friend you look down at your phone for a split second, but then you lose focus and let go of the wheel slightly and end up turning onto the other lane which put in a dangerous situation, luckily there wasn 't any cars coming. These are the type of disasters that texting while driving can cause.

It is dangerous because it takes our eyes off the road. Drivers are twenty-three times more likely to crash if texting while driving (Collins). This is just a matter of common sense. A survey from AT&T shows that ninety-seven percent of teenagers say texting and driving is dangerous, while ninety-four percent of drivers that were polled by AAA agree with that notion (Schmitz). The state of Vermont did a study that required teenagers to text while driving through an obstacle course of orange traffic cones. The study shows that the drivers were very unsuccessful and showed a four hundred percent increase in errors (Teens Learn Dangers of Texting while Driving). This is the reason why The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety estimates that texting is to blame for 11 teen deaths each day (Schmitz). Other studies show that texting and driving is actually riskier than drinking and driving. One of the studies shows that the braking distance of a driver that was texting was significantly worse than that of a legally drunk driver (Fumento). Another study shows that the reaction time of drivers that are texting are reduced by thirty-five percent, as compared to twelve percent of a legally drunk driver (Texting while Driving Vs. Drinking while Driving). With all this in mind, texting while driving is very

While you may think that getting behind a wheel drunk is the most dangerous thing you could ever do, you are incorrect. Texting and driving increases your chances of a car accident by 6-fold compared to if you were to drive a car

A study by Virginia Tech Driving Institute concluded that those who text while driving are 23 times more likely to be involved in a car accident. Other studies claim that texting while driving can be more harmful and detrimental than driving under the influence of drugs or alcohol because your mind is too consumed into your conversation.

I believe that the driving while texting should be not only treated as not only reckless driving, but also as an addiction. Yes, I said addiction, because the matter just gets worst when driving while texting, but even the idea of not being aware of your surroundings can be just as hazardous as one is driving while texting. Only difference is that a person operating a vehicle presents danger to the road and other people and a person even walking while texting also puts one’s self in danger in public places.

3. Studies show that texting while driving increases your chances of crashing by 20 times. Even using your phone in a hands-free mode is dangerous since it's a "cognitive distraction" which may decrease driving performance. In fact, texting and other distracted driving account for nearly 80% of all automobile accidents. The effects of car accidents can be devastating. Crashes may results in death and catastrophic injuries, including brain injuries, paralysis and severe burns.

Texting and driving can also be dangerous because people could die. Not only that texting and driving causes distraction to where it increases the chances of you dying or getting into car accidents. On https://www.dmv.org/distracted-driving/texting-and-driving.php it says, “26% of all car crashes in 2014 involved cell phone use. At least 9 people are killed every day because of a distracted driver. More than 1,000 people are injured every day due to a distracted driver. In 2015 42% of teens say they have texted while driving—and

Texting on the phone while driving can be a very dangerous thing to do. As someone looks at the phone and concentrates on the text messages, they will become distracted from driving. Distracted drivers can cause car accidents and injuries or death to themselves or others. Texting causes delayed reactions, which increase the chance of getting into an accident. According to Cary Aspinwall, when texting while driving, drivers take their eyes off the road for 4.6 of 6 seconds. A National Safety Council fact sheet states drivers who use cell phones are four times more likely to be in a crash. The Harvard center for Risk Analysis reports the annual cost