Tex­ting and dri­ving makes a per­son 23 times more likely to crash, study shows

By ALANA MARSH
STAFF WRITER

Motor Vehi­cle crashes are the lead­ing cause of death for Amer­i­can teenagers, killing 5,000 to 6,000 teens every year. Unsafe dri­ving threat­ens our lives every­day and is an issue that must be addressed.

Stacey DeWitt, founder and chief exec­u­tive offi­cer of Con­nect with Kids, says that dis­tracted dri­ving is the lead­ing cause of car acci­dents. Speed­ing, cell phone usage, and pres­sures from friends are just some dis­trac­tions a teen dri­ver must avoid in order to stay safe behind the wheel.

We hear about the dan­ger of tex­ting while dri­ving every day, but accord­ing to textinganddrivingsafety.com, Seventy-seven per­cent of young dri­vers say they are “very or some­what con­fi­dent that they can safely drive while tex­ting,” and 55 per­cent claim tex­ting while dri­ving is easy.

While it may seem to the dri­ver that there is noth­ing wrong with their dri­ving while they text, this site also shows that teens who text and drive are actu­ally dri­ving out­side of the lane about 10 per­cent of the time pos­ing a seri­ous threat to every­one on the road.

eSomethin.com decided to inves­ti­gate and found that many stu­dents do not see tex­ting and dri­ving as a problem.

“I use my phone to change music or text some­one [while dri­ving], but only when I’m by myself,” said one student.

Unfor­tu­nately this seems to be the mind­set of many stu­dents at PHS, but accord­ing to a study by the National High­way Trans­porta­tion Safety Admin­is­tra­tion, tex­ting and dri­ving makes a per­son 23 times more likely to crash and is the same as dri­ving after four beers.

“Teens should try to focus on the road,” says senior Angela Panzero, “and not get dis­tracted, and not have your phone near you when you drive.”

Speed­ing is another aspect of dri­ving that many teens seem to have become apa­thetic about. “I speed on some neigh­bor­hood streets if I’m in a hurry some­times, but mostly because I am impa­tient,” claims another PHS stu­dent driver.

All­state Auto Insur­ance reports that 55 per­cent of teenage dri­vers admit “they exceed the speed limit by more than 10 [mph].” Another 69 per­cent of teens say they speed in order to keep up with traf­fic, which shows that teens are not the only ones to blame. Accord­ing to consumerreports.com, “speed­ing kills nearly 900 Amer­i­cans every month.”

Dal­las Stiles

Senior Dal­las Stiles sums it up by say­ing that to pro­mote safe dri­ving teens should “put the phone away, avoid speed­ing, always wear a seat belt, not have super loud music, and make sure to keep eyes on the road.”

If all dri­vers would fol­low this advice, our roads would be much safer. Other dri­ving dis­trac­tions include such things as hav­ing too many peo­ple in the car, eat­ing or drink­ing, and being tired.

Sleepcenter.ucla.edu states that even just dri­ving drowsy pro­duces a slow reac­tion time from the dri­ver and causes them to make bad deci­sions. The site says dri­vers should def­i­nitely make sure they get an ade­quate amount of sleep before get­ting behind the wheel.

These are just a few of many ways that teen dri­vers can be safe on the road. Stu­dents should pass the mes­sage to their friends that dri­ving safe is impor­tant for their schools and com­mu­ni­ties, and espe­cially for them­selves and their futures.

KeeptheDrive.com is an inter­ac­tive site which helps teens do just that. The site pro­motes and gives teens a way to help spread the mes­sage about safe dri­ving. The site states that it was cre­ated to let the teens do the talk­ing, and gives prac­ti­cal tools and ideas for how to do it.

And accord­ing to All­state, “By empow­er­ing teens to become part of the solu­tion, and by cel­e­brat­ing their dri­ving expe­ri­ences, The All­state Foun­da­tion Teen Dri­ving Pro­gram takes a pos­i­tive approach to address­ing the No. 1 killer of teens and mak­ing smart dri­ving socially accept­able among teens themselves.”

Let’s drive, but let’s drive safe.

Con­tact Alana Marsh at: alana1713@gmail.com