Position Paper on Texting or Talking on the Phone While Driving

POSITION PAPER

ON

TEXTING OR TALKING ON THE PHONE WHILE DRIVING

Sitting in the car driving on the highway and your phone starts vibrating. You know that one single vibration means you received a text. You sit there thinking, "Who could it be? Is it my best friend with plans for later this week, or my dad because something is wrong." You think to yourself, "traffic is flowing pretty well right now, no stop and goes; I can easily pick up my phone, read and reply to the text." So of course you give in to the temptation. You weren't able to handle not knowing what that simple text message was saying. Next thing you know you see brake lights and that's it...everything goes black. You don't feel the impact or the hurt your family feels all because you decided to check your phone for that one simple moment and now your life might be over. Hopefully, with you reading this your choice will be against talking and text while behind the wheel. The points I will focus on today are texting while driving takes away from your vision and focus, Texas has banned talking and texting while driving, and how I have learned from a personal experience why it should be illegal. One of the key fundamentals to driving is your vision and focus.

Texting while driving takes away the two things people rely on the most while behind the wheel, your vision and focus. While driving all your attention should be on the road and your surroundings. You should not do anything to un-focus yourself including writing, reading, and/or sending text messages. According to Edgar Snyder & Associates texting while driving is about six times more likely to result in an accident than driving while intoxicated and more than 800,000 vehicles were driven by individuals using a hand-held cell phone. The state of Texas is aware of these statistics and has made amendments to the law to deal with individuals who persist to talk and text on the phone while operating a motor vehicle.

In today's society you will lose co-worker, friends, and family due to this tragedy. The state of Texas' legal system has established a law that banned texting and talking on cell-phones in school zones for multiple reasons including: not paying attention which might lead to a crash, injures, or killing yourself or an innocent child just walking home. The state has put up signs to remind you not to talk or text while driving because of the dangerous and sometimes deadly repercussions. Sometimes the statistics aren't good enough to change a person's mind and I am guilty of that offense. I learned from a personal experience that I witnessed and I hope no one else will have to see.

Learning from a personal experience is the only way some people will learn. One day a good friend and I accepted a ride