Texting and Driving

March 25, 2010  
Filed under News

A teen driver just found out that he had received a fine of $22 million for an accident that happened while he was texting and driving. Minutes before the accident the police had checked his phone bill and saw that he had made seven phone calls and had sent 15 text messages. He hit a car head on and killed the driver. The $22 million dollars goes towards paying for damages and for the fine of texting and driving.

Already, 19 states have banned texting while driving altogether. In July 2010 Wisconsin will be the 20^th state to pass the no texting law. The study that was released in July 2007 had shown that more than 900 teens from 26 high schools nationwide revealed that texting while driving was just as bad or worse than driving drunk. A January 2010 Nielsen study of the phone bills of 40,000 US teenagers found that teenagers send text messages an average of 10 times per hour while they are awake – exceeding 3100 text message per month.

Texting while driving takes all of the attention from driving to the cell phone. 37% of teens rated text messaging as “extremely” or “very” distracting. Yet people still send and receive text messages while driving.

The survey featured in Seventeen magazine’s August issue, on newsstands today, shows that 61% of teens admit to risky driving habits. Of that 61%, 46 % say that they text message when driving and 51% talk on cell phones while driving. The research, conducted in April, was a survey of more than 1,000 16- and 17-year-old drivers.

Washington is trying to get the texting and driving under control. In Missouri, it is already illegal for someone under the age of 21 to read, write or send text messages. Missouri’s legislation is broadening the ban to cover all ages from texting and driving on Thursday, March 18. There was a 34- 0 vote and the bill went straight to the house.

Teen texting and driving is turning into a serious problem and parents in Las Vegas are taking control over the situation. The new device is called TextArrest.  Now parents are getting web based camera’s to put on the dashboard of the vehicle to turn the phone to driver or passenger mode. When it is turned to driver mode then no texts or phone calls can come through unless it is an emergency phone call, but when they are in the passenger seat the phone may be used.

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Chelsea McComb

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