Texting and Driving

We know that texting and driving is illegal and that you can be fined, yet many still do it, thinking I’ll just pop off this quick text and everything will be fine. The problem is that it’s not fine. Texting and driving, in addition to other uses of your phone while driving are the leading cause of car accidents and wrongful deaths in the United States.

Texting and Driving Safely pulled together detailed statistics about phone usage while driving that is worth reviewing:

• Text Messaging makes a crash up to 2.3 times more likely
• Dialing 2.8 times more likely
• Talking or listening 1.3 times more likely
• Reaching for device 1.4 times more at risk
• 10% of drivers age 15-20 involved in car wrecks admitted to texting or talking on their mobile devices at the time of the crash.
• 77% of young adults are very or somewhat confident that they can text while driving.
• 55% of young adult drivers claim it’s easy to text while driving.

Another resource, Drive Now, Text Later, also has even more detailed statistics worth reading:

When you text and drive, your chances of being in a traffic accident involving injury or death are dramatically increased.

• You are 23 times more likely to be involved in a traffic accident if you text and drive. (Virginia Tech Transportation Institute)
• Over 25% of people between the ages of 18 and 29 report that they text “regularly” while driving. (Center For Disease Control)
• About 9% of all drivers on the road report that they use their cell phones to text “fairly often” while driving. (CDC)
• 5,474 people died in the U.S. in 2009 due to motor vehicle crashes that were caused by distracted driving. (Fatal Accident Reporting System)
• 448,000 people were injured in the U.S. in 2009 because of traffic accidents that were caused by distracted driving. (FARS)
• When using a cell phone while driving, the brain activity associated with driving is lessened by 37%. (Carnegie Mellon)
• The average time for sending or reading a text message is 4.6 seconds. A car traveling 55 miles-per-hour will travel the length of a
• football field in this amount of time. (VTTI)
• 40% of teens in the U.S. report that they have been in a vehicle while the driver was using a cell phone in a way that put passengers in danger. (Pew)
• 16% of all fatal motor vehicle crashes reported in the U.S. in 2009 occurred due to distracted driving. (National Highway Traffic Safety Administration)
• 20% of all motor vehicle crashes involving injury in the U.S. in 2009 occurred as a result of distracted driving. (NHTSA)
• 48% of young drivers have seen their parents drive while talking on a cell phone.
• 48% of kids age 12-17 have been in a car while the driver was texting.
• 1 in 5 drivers of all ages confess to surfing the web while driving.

Finally, an article found on Communities Digital News reported that texting and driving is the leading cause of teenage death. Texting while drive is six times more dangers than driving while intoxicated and more dangerous than driving while high on marijuana.

The reason texting while driving is so dangerous is because it involves three out of three types or categories of distracted driving, while being under the influence of alcohol or marijuana only distracts the driver in two ways.

Distracted driving comes in three different forms:

• Cognitive or mental distraction occurs when a driver’s mind isn’t focused on driving. Distractions can include talking to another passenger and listening to the radio. These distractions take the drivers’ focus away from their driving.
• Visual distraction? occurs when a driver looks at anything other than the road ahead. Checking a child’s seat belt is a visually distracting behavior as is glancing at electronic devices for the car such as GPS devices.
• Manual distraction ?occurs when the driver takes one or both hands off the wheel for any reason. Common examples include eating and drinking in the car, adjusting the GPS, or trying to get something from a purse, wallet, or briefcase

We’d love to hear from you. Do you text and drive? Do you know somebody who does? Do you regard texting and driving as a recipe for catastrophe?

The Peck Law Group’s attorneys provide top quality legal services to victims and families in Los Angeles and throughout California. We specialize in cases ranging from car accidents & personal injury to elder abuse & nursing home abuse.  For more information, please contact Steven Peck at (818) 908-0509 | Toll Free (866) 999-9085 | [email protected].