It may be a bad habit, but it’s a habit we all need to break. What is this horrid habit? Is it chewing you fingernails or tobacco use? No it’s not; it’s distracted driving. No matter what it is that distracts you from the wheel, you need to find a way to make sure that it doesn’t distract you again. In the article “Talking and Texting While Driving: A Look at Regulating Cell Phone Use Behind the Wheel”, Shannon Noder gives a perfect example of this happening to you. There is a car swerving in between lanes on the highway in front of you. Your first guess is that there is a drunken driver behind the wheel. When you go to pass them you happen to glance out the passenger window and see that the driver isn’t drunk, but deep in conversation with someone on their cell phone. You personally may be repulsed at the driver’s lack of attention towards the road, but then you realize that you sometimes chat on the phone while driving. You may use a double standard in your mind to justify this to yourself, while in truth it is unjustifiable.
Chances are you are one of the eighty-five percent of Americans who happen to use your cell phone behind the wheel, but even if you aren’t, you probably have driven while distracted before. Although distracted driving is highly prevalent in teens, many adults drive distracted, too. Whether it’s adjusting a car mirror, putting on make-up, driving while drowsy, and/or many of the other types of driving distractions, the danger of driving is still up to 23 times greater when you are not focused on the road, so push these distractions out the window and watch the road.
Now I would like to speak to those of you who do use your phone behind the wheel. I’m not judging you because of your bad habits, but habits are made to be broken. In all cases, using your cell phone behind the wheel makes driving 23 times more dangerous. It may seem like an unbelievable statistic, but it is also unbelievably true. It may seem like a harmless task to talk on the phone with a friend while you’re driving, but it is actually about as harmless as sleeping in a cage with a provoked lion. Wake up and get out of the cage! Drive safe and watch the road.
Distracted driving is becoming more and more common as the technological age progresses. I’m not saying that technology doesn’t have lots of advantages, such as advancing our education systems and making cars safer, but I’m saying that a lot of it doesn’t make sense behind the wheel. Whether it’s a cell phone causing the driver to glance away from the wheel to check up on a text, an iPod dragging attention from the wheel with multiple notifications, or an iPad used to do homework while driving to school, technology is almost always the fierce predator dragging its prey’s attention away from the road until it destroys its prey in one quick crash.
Car crashes are one of the leading causes of death in the United States, and 80% of all crashes can be linked back to distraction. Drunken driving accidents may be more likely to cause fatalities, but distracted driving accidents are more common and cause at least as many deaths each year. If you want to be another statistic in a book about car crashes that’s your choice, but I know I don’t want to be. Don’t be one of those statistics! Save lives and pay attention to the road! The carnivore is really hungry, don’t become its prey!
Thomas, Ken. NHTSA Say Driving Distracted To Blame For 80% of Crashes. Transport Topics Publishing Group, 2006
Noder, Shannon. “Talking and Texting While Driving: A Look at Regulating Cell Phone Use Behind the Wheel” Fall 2009: 1-46
Turpin, Zachary. Texting Makes Driving 23 Times More Dangerous. http://bookofodds.com
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