You are in the car by yourself running a quick errand when your phone rings; it’s your text message alert. Do you pick it up and look at it? It might be your mother or the person you have a crush on or even your Gossip Girl updates, but maybe it’s important. Too important for you to wait five minutes until you get to your destination.
By Stephanie Isacco
Staff Writer
You are in the car by yourself running a quick errand when your phone rings; it’s your text message alert. Do you pick it up and look at it? It might be your mother or the person you have a crush on or even your Gossip Girl updates, but maybe it’s important. Too important for you to wait five minutes until you get to your destination.
Texting requires the user to look at their phone, for what they think is only a split second, but a study by the Virginia Tech Transportation Institute found that, “texting took a driver’s focus away from the road for an average of 4.6 seconds–enough time…to travel the length of a football field at 55 mph.”
That is a long distance to travel while virtually blindfolded. Now, consider the question again: will you pick up your phone and check what it says? Will you even dare to respond? How many seconds will that take?
A recent poll conducted by CBS News/New York Times shows that about 90 percent of Americans believe texting behind the wheel should be outlawed. A study by Nationwide Insurance shows that 20 percent of the total population and 50 percent of teens admit to receiving and sending text messages while driving. From these statistics, it is clear that there is an overlap of people who think texting while driving is dangerous, but still do it anyhow.
Even though people know the dangers, they are still texting for the same reason that college students cannot get enough Facebook or twitter. Because we are a technology obsessed society of instant gratification and gossip addiction. With your phone sitting there in the car with you, having the capabilities to communicate instantly with anyone about anything, you are drawn to it like you are pulled toward your Facebook page that you just checked 10 minutes ago.
According to the Governors Highway Safety Association, 18 states and the District of Columbia currently prohibit text messaging while driving. Another 9 states prohibit texting for novice drivers. No state has a complete ban on cell phone use, but 6 states prohibit the use of handheld devices and 21 states prohibit use by novice drivers.
The most extreme laws put in place to battle the texting epidemic penalize the guilty party as harshly as they would be punished for drunk driving. In Utah, if you are in a crash while texting, it is not considered an accident but rather reckless endangerment which warrants at most 15 years in prison. Is answering that text message that is probably about something trivial really worth the risk of 15 years in prison or worse your own safety and the safety of others?
It seems like it should be a no-brainer, texting while driving is dangerous, and there should be laws against it. But it would be tough to effectively enforce such laws since it would be difficult for police officers to discern between texting and dialing. Some states have discussed using phone records to determine whether or not the accused was texting, but many view this as a violation of privacy. Like any type of law, they will need to work the kinks out and people will put up a fight for their right to endanger others and themselves. So until Pennsylvania passes a law to ban texting while driving, do your part and put your phone away when you are behind the wheel. Even put it on silent, that way you are not tempted to sneak a peek when it rings. We survived without cell phones for thousands of years, so you can wait a few minutes to feed your addiction.