Texting While Driving - Essay Example

Texting While Driving I left my house at 5 AM the other day in order to make it to my cars service center before the crowds started to pile up. I did not want to spend my whole day sitting in their lounge watching mindless television while I waited for my car to be serviced. the only way I could do that, was to make sure that I was if not at the top of the client line, then at least somewhere near numbers 1-5. As I progressed in my trip, the sun started to come up and the dawn and light game of blinding the driver began. This is what is known as the witching hour while driving. It is the time of the day when one needs the utmost of concentration as our eyes try to acclimatize to the slowly changing lighting situation on the road. Then it happened. The familiar text tone emitted from my mobile phone that was holstered in its holder clip in front of my air-conditioning vent. I glanced down at it and saw the information “1 new text: Mother”. Having driven down this road many times before, and often times answering text messages as I did that, I thought nothing of grabbing my phone from its holder and opening the message to read it, glancing up at the road once in a while to make sure I did not crash into a tree or something. She was worried that I had left without having any breakfast and I had forgotten to tell her that I was leaving early. She just wanted to know where I was headed out to. As I began answering the message, another message came in from my best friend, which I also felt an immediate need to respond to. Pretty soon, I was driving with one hand and texting with the other while my eyes darted back and forth between the two activities that divided my brain concentration. Then I suddenly heard a bump and my car thudded over whatever it was that was lying on the road that I had not seen. I got down from the car and checked under neath. I had hit an obviously family owned dog whose master was currently running towards me, shouting in anger. Although I had taken the animal to the vet and paid for the medical expenses, a police officer still came over to investigate what happened. He asked me why I did not have my eyes on the road and both hands on the wheel, I responded that I had been texting while driving. His demeanor changed as he told me “You should not have been doing that. That is the height of irresponsible driving.” I responded that I knew that now. But it was obviously a lesson that I learned too late. We will all have to admit that mobile phones and its accompanying technology, text messaging, have become indispensable parts of our daily lives. Millions of text messages are exchanged everyday between family, friends, and co-workers. Each message is important to us because we feel a need to be constantly connected to everyone in our daily lives. That is the main purpose of the technology, the keep people in contact during times when it is absolutely necessary to be in touch. But just like any other important and useful technology that was developed for the betterment of our lives, something went wrong along the way, causing the technology to become a harbinger of bad news instead. Texting while driving account for at least 25 % of road accidents every year and, as of 2002, has caused the death of more than 2600 people. (Snyder, “Cellphone & Texting Accident Statistics). The accidents are caused by the delay in response time of the driver to obstacles that come across his path from the minute he takes his eyes off the road, looks at his phone, then looks at the road again. The human brain, though able to respond to the changes in the driving conditions and activities of the driver, reacts at least 18 percent slower to brake lights, that translates to roughly 14 seconds more physical response time (Snyder, “Cellphone & Texting Accident Statistics) Even with the growing statistics of texting while driving accidents, there are still those who oppose any ban on the said activity. People like 22 year old Robert Smith (“Texting While Driving is Dangerous; Shouldnt it be Illegal?”) see no problem with combining his driving responsibilities with answering messages on his phone because: Its convenient, I put the phone on top of the steering wheel and text with both thumbs. However convenient the activity for people like Smith, the reality of the the situation is that the time will come when he looks up from his phone and he will be involved in a car wreck without any idea about how it happened. Texting while driving forces the brain to accomplish two separate activities without enough time to “switch gears”. It takes about 5 seconds with which the brain can recognize the new activity and condition itself to respond to that particular driving need. When driving at high speeds, 5 seconds is all it takes to cross the length of a football field (“Texting While Driving is Dangerous; Shouldnt it be Illegal?”). That is what causes the accidents and that is why the activity should be banned. Mark Hinkle on the other hand (“Texting While Driving Should Not Be Illegal”) believes that the activity should not be banned or considered illegal. This is because in most states where driving while texting is already banned, the accident rates have actually gone up. The Institute for Highway Safety in North Carolina in fact (Lynch, “Text Messaging Behind The Wheel”) acknowledge that: ... North Carolinas cell-phone ban for drivers under 18 did not deter them from talking or texting. In fact, cell phone use actually increased slightly after the law took effect on December 1, 2006, from 11% to 11.8% about five months later. They claim that the reason this happened is because the people who choose to text and drive at the same time have had to get creative in order to hide their illegal activity from the traffic police. That is why the traffic police admit that it is almost impossible to enforce the law. They cant see who is violating it ((Lynch, “Text Messaging Behind The Wheel”) That would make sense to some extent. There just seems to be something about illegal activities that draw violators to it like a moth to a flame. That is why people like Mark Hinkle, chairman of Libertarian National Committee believe that instead of banning the activity, there should instead be a law to punish the act done and not the arbitrary method by which it was done ( “Texting While Driving Should Not Be Illegal” ). He explains that: Laws should punish harm done and not the arbitrary method used to commit them. For example, if a person is murdered, the punishment should be the same whether they were shot with a gun or pushed off a cliff. In either case, the person’s life was equally valuable and so should the punishment. He believes that as long as people are made responsible for their actions, they will come around and realize that they have a problem if they continue to text while driving and eventually, the problem will sort itself out without government intervention. That may be true in some cases. But the problem is that people need to be first be made aware that they have a problem. Which is why laws should be implemented, a national law if necessary, must be passed, in order to protect the people from a dangerous activity that they do not realize they are engage in. Take for example, a study done by David Strayer who is a psychology professor from the University of Utah (Cruz & Oloffson, “Distracted Driving: Should Talking , Texting be Banned?” ) that has shown precisely why people who drive distractedly are bad drivers. According to his Time Magazine article: Strayer, who for more than a decade has been studying the effects driving and cell-phone use have on the brain, says those 2% are probably the same people who would be really good fighter pilots. Rarities. Some of Strayers other findings show that most drivers tend to stare straight ahead while using a cell phone and are less influenced by peripheral vision. In other words, "cell phones," he says, "make you blind to your own bad driving." (Cruz & Oloffson, “Distracted Driving: Should Talking , Texting be Banned?” ) There is no such thing as the perfect driver. Even after all these years of driving behind me, I still find myself prone to driving and traffic errors. I still fall into potholes and manage to get tickets for traffic violations, and that is without the distraction of texting while driving. What more so the driver who is trying to balance a cellphone on his lap or steering wheel, trying to text with his thumbs and navigate the steering wheel with his remaining 8 fingers. That complicated distracted driving method description is enough to scare anybody. Which is why we should be thankful that there are people in the government like New York Rep. Carolyn McCarthy who wants to nationally ban hand held devices while driving. (Winkler, “Rep. McCarthy Introduces Nationwide Texting While Driving Ban” ). She, along with many other concerned drivers of this nation believe that the law she is advocating will be the “starting point” for an activity that she deems as dangerous as drunken driving. Although we already have 30 state laws that ban the texting while driving activity, there is truly a need for a true nationwide law that will help protect people from themselves. Other opponents of the law say that it is not necessary since we already have traffic violation laws that cover multiple offenses and even allow the police and traffic enforcers to issue tickets best suited to the driving violation committed, which in this case would be “reckless driving”. By definition, reckless driving may apply to texting while driving since it is defined as (“Why Texting While Driving Should Not Be Illegal”): ... a mental state in which the driver displays a wanton disregard for the rules of the road; the driver often misjudges common driving procedures, often causing accidents and other damages." However, the Highway Loss Data Institute did a study of 4 states with driving bans in 2010 (Winkler, “Rep. McCarthy Introduces Nation-Wide Texting While Driving Ban”) and discovered information that supports the claim of the Institute for Highway Safety in North Carolina due to the fact that their studies: found that “no reductions in crashes after laws take effect that ban texting by all drivers. In fact, such bans are associated with a slight increase” These studies should be considered inconclusive as it has already become known that those engaged in texting while driving have become experts at hiding their dangerous activity from the police. We must consider the danger as something that will continue to grow for as long as Ipads, Iphones, Blackberries, and other forms of texting communication continue to evolve and develop. These activities will always take a drivers eyes off the road for a vital few seconds within which life altering accidents can take place. That is why we need Rep. McCarthys bill to pass. It contains a vital component that will be able to help the mobile phone manufacturers create a more driving friendly texting tool because the law: ... would require the Department of Transportation to conduct an extensive two- year study on distracted driving. McCarthy said the study would serve as an outline of how to “move forward” with ways to address distracted driving in the future. (Winkler, “Rep. McCarthy Introduces Nation-Wide Texting While Driving Ban”) The debate on texting while driving is the same as before the Seat belt law was implemented. Once the law passes and we get used to the idea of not texting while driving, we will wonder why we ever started doing the dangerous activity at all. Works Cited Cruz, Gilbert & Oloffson, Kristi. “Distracted Driving: Should Talking and Texting be Banned?”. Time Magazine US. Time Magazine. 24 Aug. 2009. Web. 29 Nov. 2011. DeepDiveAdmin. “Re: Texting While Driving is Dangerous; Should it be Illegal?”. Opposing Views. Opposing Views. 27 Jul 2009. Web. 28 Nov. 2011. NotJustAnotherJennifer. “Re: Why Texting While Driving Should Not Be Illegal” Blogher. Blogher. 9 Sept. 2010. Web. 28 Nov. 2011. Lynch, Sarah. “Text-Messaging Behind the Wheel”. Time US. Time. 25 Jun. 2008. Web. 29 Nov. 2011. Pearson, Terry. “Texting While Driving Should Not Be Illegal”. Thought and Freedom. Thought and Freedom. 10 Nov. 2011. Web. 28 Nov. 2011. Snyder, Edgar. “Cellphone & Texting Accident Statistics”. Edgar Snyder & Associates. Edgar Snyder & Associates. 2011. Web. 29 Nov. 2011. Winkler, Jeff. “Rep. McCarthy Introduces Nation-Wide Texting While Driving Ban”. The Daily Caller. The Daily Caller. 16 Jun. 20111. Web. 29 Nov. 2011. Read More