Texting and Driving

It seems, to me at least, like common sense to keep your eyes on the road at all times when you're driving. Wait 'til you get to a red light to change the radio station or change the CD, don't be a rubbernecker and stare at the accident on the other side of the highway as you drive by, and most importantly DON'T TEXT WHILE YOU'RE DRIVING!

People do it all the time, you see them holding their slide down keyboard phones on the steering wheel, just driving around like it's perfectly okay. This isn't to say that people don't do other stupid things while they're driving (reading, shaving, putting on make up, eating) but texting seems to be the most common.

If you're texting with both hands on your phone resting on top of the steering wheel, 1. you don't have your eyes on the road and 2. you don't have your hands on the wheel. Steering with your fists is not safe!

So I was watching Fox News today, and I rarely watch the news because it is often extremely aggravating, but today I saw something that was completely shocking and disturbing.

The UK aired a Public Service Announcement about texting while driving.

Warning: This is extremely graphic



For those of you who don't have a strong stomach, three girls are driving down the road, the driver texting, they drift into oncoming traffic, get into a head on collision (shows what is going on inside their car in slow motion) and then a third smashes into them. The texting driver has an apparent neck injury, her two friends are unconscious, possibly dead, the car she crashed into has a little girl sitting next to her possibly also dead baby sister, crying for her mommy and daddy to wake up, and the driver of the third car is also unconscious.

All in all it is shockingly graphic and upsetting. But maybe this is what we have to resort to if people won't take warnings seriously. And judging from the looks of the comments on this video on youtube, a lot of people won't even take this seriously. Do we need to start arresting people for texting while driving? Some people might think this seems extreme, but I see it as extremely dangerous, and there need to be consequences for people who do this. It seems like everyone just thinks "it won't happen to me". Well, chances are, it'll only happen once.

You're not only putting your own life at risk by texting and driving, you're putting other people's lives at risk, and that's not fair. Think about it.