Since the introduction of text messaging, our society has become a population of screen peckers, with deft little thumbs that can move at an unbelievable rate across a phone keyboard. The average text messages sent each day in the United States alone reaches 6 billion, with the amount of texts sent across the world reaching 2.2 trillion each year. With numbers like these, it’s no surprise that text messaging has become a problem while driving.
In 2011, 23 percent of car accidents involved a cell phone—that equals about 1.3 million accidents. When you text, your eyes are off the road for at least five seconds. If you happen to be going 55 miles per hour, that means you travel the entire length of a football field without looking up once.
So, while you’re busying answering the text asking you “Wut up?,” your car is essentially barreling down a road at 55 miles per hour by its own free will because, with your eyes off the road for that length of time, you won’t be paying enough attention to stop it. Can you imagine all the different scenarios that can happen in a football field length of space? Cars can pull out in front of you. Chickens can cross the road. Children can chase their basketballs into the street. All possible accidents just waiting to happen, all because you want to type, “Nuthin, u?”
Texting makes you 23 times more likely to crash. With 1 out of 5 drivers admitting to surfing the web while driving, the road just got that much more dangerous. Think before you text. You might just be saving a life.
