Texting while driving has become in the last few years a reason for concern especially among teenagers who are not aware of the dangers of texting while driving. Texting while driving a vehicle can claim lives and if it’s not the driver’s life, it will certainly be the lives of innocent people. As such, no phone call or text message is worth the risk that someone can injure himself or die because of a few seconds of inadvertence.
Dangers of Texting While Driving
On a yearly basis, more than fifty thousand drivers are injured, while six thousands are claimed deceased because people are not aware of the dangers of texting while driving. If in the past drunk driving was one of the main causes for deceases, now texting seems to have taken the front seat.
Teenagers are very active, euphoric and they can easily get distracted. In addition, whilst at their age they also don’t know too much about responsibilities (i.e. the dangers of texting while driving), the consequences of their actions can be more severe. There are a few types of distractions that can make them look away and they are cognitive, manual and visual. With the latter, it’s easy to understand that it can take the driver’s attention off the road. Yet when it comes to texting, it’s all of the three that we mentioned, which makes it a very dangerous distraction.
Thus, there are plenty of dangers of texting while driving and consequences that such behavior has, as we will number below.
One of the dangers of texting while driving is that teens could easily hit someone and not only cause serious injuries, but also kill the victim. When teens are involved in such events, this puts a lot of pressure on the parents as well and they will not only be deprived of their liberty, but school as well, so their future will just be put on hold. Parents will, depending on the country, take part of the blame and even serve time in jail.
Injuring someone because of the lack of attention on the road doesn’t only have immediate legal consequences, but the driver involved and also the victims can be psychologically traumatized for many years. Being involved in an accident is a shock because most of the times, people don’t believe that it can happen to them. Such shocks, especially when doubled by other unpleasant similar events from the past can scar people lifelong and put a permanent stigma to their quality of life.
Financial involvement, especially in cases resulted due to the dangers of texting while driving can be tremendous. Any parent would like their kid to walk away with it, so this calls for huge amounts of money that is going to be spent in court and also for any hospitalization expenses on behalf of the accused (if applicable) and also the victim.
Last but not least, if a fatal accident is the outcome of the dangers of texting while driving, then the ones involved are scarred forever. The teens depending on their age, can serve time in jail, while the families involved will be marked psychotically by the event, which of course would deem that massive amounts of money would be involved for mending the affected side. Regardless of whose fault it is, accidents destroy lives and rare are the cases in which full recoveries are possible. More to that, being the witness of people texting while driving can encourage teens to engage in similar behaviors as they deem it to be harmless.
Dangers of Texting while Driving Statistics
After conducting a survey regarding the dangers of texting while driving that was done on eight hundred teens in the United States in the summer of two thousand and nine, twenty six percent of the teens that were aged sixteen – seventeen drove and texted at the same time and forty three percent talked on their phone.
26% of the teens that were aged 16 – 17 drove and texted at the same time and 43% talked on their phone
What is worse though is that forty eight percent of teens aged twelve to seventeen have been the witness of someone texting while driving, so it actually leads to an acceptance of this type of behavior, unaware of the dangers of texting while driving. Even though the laws are harsh for the people submitting themselves to the dangers of texting while driving, the teens don’t seem to be scared that easily.
Conclusion: Dangers of Texting while Driving
In conclusion, the dangers of texting while driving are real and no one should attempt to know better than what the statistics claim, for they would just end up being possible victims setting a good example through maybe their own lives.
excellent post! thanks for the heads up! I can see I have much to do.
Thanks for your post, as a parent I see that it is me who should be responsible to take action in the life of my sons.
Incredible article. Thanks and keep more comign!
Times have changed indeed. It is more important than ever to make sure texting is not allowed while driving under any circunstances. thanks for bringing this issue up in your blog.
very powerful message and very scary stats. Time do do a better job securing our kids.
I am not saying is not my problem, but we need stronger laws at the federal level if we want to stop this problem from killing more children. Let’s stop the dangers of texting while driving now before it’s too late.
More laws..we need laws! It doesn’t take a genius to know that texting and driving shoudl never be allowed in our roads.
We all going to end up paying for the few by way of increased premiums for our sons and daughters. Any teenager caugh texting while driving should have their license revoked. end of story
As a mother of 2 young drivers I tried my best to let them know the dangers of texting, but just in case I did install some application that will not allowed them to do so
Isn’t there a way to stop cellphones from texting at least temporarily. sure we can shrink the size of this gadgets but we cannot make them safer. It is time to get help from legislation directed at the manufacturers and start doing some research.