Technology Collides: Why Texting and Driving Don’t Mix


You are driving down the somewhat busy road in your brand new Mercedes Benz. The sky is a bright shade of blue, and there’s no wind out there. Your cell phone rings, blaring out your latest favorite song, and you reach over the passenger seat to answer the call. You start talking, your mind wandering off, and you get deeply involved in the conversation. Before you know it, you just ran a red light and get side swiped by a tractor-trailer barreling across the intersection. Your life is flipped upside down, literally.


Every time you take your focus off the road, even for a few seconds, you are putting your life, and the lives of other drivers on the line. Lately, stories about a car crash that occurred, where the cause of it was impaired driving or some form of distracted driving, are popping up more frequently. But the real question for people appears to be, is texting while driving more dangerous than drunk driving? The answer is yes, it is. And, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, driving a vehicle while texting is six times more dangerous than driving while intoxicated. And the stories to prove that is out there. The daily news, radio, even in your own neighborhood or city, talk of reckless or distracted teenagers getting behind the wheel, usually end up involving themselves or an innocent passenger in some sort of car crash, possibly ending in death.


Emotions run high off of the topic, and feelings are continuously affected. Images of a car wrecked beyond repair, or crashed into another vehicle are ones you do not hope to see. We all know we should never drive while having consumed alcohol, but that does not stop us from participating in something even more dangerous: texting and driving.


Now, it is on impulse that you want to go defend yourself and declare, quite loudly, that you would never take part in such a horrid action. That you have been brought up in a way, that you know you should never touch your phone when driving. Yet, those who have uttered the vow of having no distractions may find themselves in that predicament, and it may be a little harder to say no. We get that. With all the new social media out, like Twitter and Instagram, it may be harder to ignore the incoming “like” on your photo, or the tweet about you that is being spread all over the internet. You are also probably tempted to take a picture on Snapchat and set it as your story for all your friends to be informed that you are out on the open road. But a 2003 Harvard study found that cell phone distractions caused about 2,600 traffic deaths every year, and 330,000 accidents that resulted in moderate or severe injuries. Even taking a quick picture or moving your attention for a few seconds does not make those statistics go away. Nor does it make it better.


Distractions are a major problem, which the world presumably knows. People who are driving rarely run a red light because they feel like breaking the law, nor would they run a stop sign just because the street was empty, which shows that something else was probably grabbing their attention. Whether they were on a cell phone, texting, changing the radio station, drinking coffee, applying mascara, day-dreaming or reaching for an item, it is typically hard to figure out.


The world, as technology has been attracting more people’s attention, even while they are in control of a moving vehicle, has changed the way people think about accidents and what causes them. It has also changed the way parents warn their kids when they go off driving. Instead of the “no drinking and driving” speech, it has switched to “no texting and driving” speech. Even though drunk driving should never be taken lightly, as it can dull your senses and slow down the thinking process, distracted driving appears to be winning the non-existent race, which consists of what form of driving, is the leading cause of deaths and accidents?


Yes, people out there would vehemently disagree, but it is getting around that distracted driving is worse than drunk driving. In 2009, Car and Driver conducted a driving test, trying to prove that texting and driving was more dangerous than impaired driving. As the drivers sent and received text messages, they were to stop, and were then measured based on how long it took between when the brake light came on, and when the brake was applied by the driver at 35 miles per hour, and 70 miles per hour. Later on, both people consumed the legal driving limit of alcohol for their state, and they ran the same test. Surprisingly, the response times were better when they were drunk, than when they were distracted. Both the editor-in-chief and intern took 70 more feet to respond when they were receiving and sending a message, than when they were driving under the influence. The slow response times due to the distractions can be placed in a real life driving situation, where an accident is probable to occur.


This unquestionably does not justify drunk driving, but it shows how one, though dangerous, may be slightly better than the other. People, especially teenagers, do not realize that your attention can be easily diverted, and you can be immersed with something as simple as eating, and that the evolution of technology has slowly been causing more deaths. Imagine if your best friend was involved in a car crash, where the cause of it was someone was caught texting and driving. Wouldn’t that spur you to never do the same? Sometimes it takes a terrifying, real life experience to stop a dangerous habit. Drunk driving should still be a top priority, but people should also be aware that your cell phone in the car with you may be one of the reasons an upcoming disaster may occur.


Hopefully, the situation has escalated to the point that most of us will begin to be more critical of our own behavior behind the wheel, and make more of an effort to stop with those driving distractions. As predicted, distractions will never go away, but eliminating cell phone use while driving is a huge problem that needs to be fixed immediately. While lawmakers have created laws that ban cell phone use while driving, that clearly has not stopped everyone. Putting oneself and another individual’s safety at risk can be stopped if people would just focus on driving, and not the device in their hand. For me, this topic highlights the bigger picture-- what activities should our society think are deemed appropriate while driving? There should only be one answer. Driving. From the wise words of Charles Percy Snow, “Technology is a queer thing. It brings you great gifts with one hand and it stabs you in the back with the other.”