How to prevent teens from texting or using social media while driving?

Philipo Ntibaokiza

Texting and driving is a big problem today mostly common with teens. One way you can stop it from happening to make your phone read out the texts to you so you can just respond with your voice. If you didn’t hear it you could just ask to repeat the text and your phone would automatically do it for you. With this method, it would reduce people texting and driving. All they are now doing is just multitasking which everyone is used to. This method is safer than pulling up your phone and looking at it while trying to drive. This method would be more like talking on the phone only and would be really easy to do. Teens wouldn’t have to learn anything new at all. It would be safer for everyone around the teen so chances of them crashing or hitting anything would be lowered. The person wouldn’t be distracted either which makes them, even more, cautious on the road. Another method that could be used is by making an app that monitors how fast a person is going and if they are going faster than 10 mph for 10 seconds the app will notice that they are currently driving. It’s hard for humans to run 10 mph so it would be a good speed for your phone to notice. If they were able to run 10 mph they would still have to keep going that speed for 10 seconds which is also hard. When the phone notices your going that fast it would lockdown, the GPS would still work, and you’ll be able to see and hear it but nothing else except that. That would eliminate distractions from texting and social media altogether. The teen would be focused on driving the whole time and wouldn’t be able to access their phone. Just in case they try removing the app you would need a password that only the parent knows to remove it. This would completely remove distractions and would make the road safer. Another way is to educate them on what happens if you do text and drive or use social media. They would talk about how many people a year get hurt from texting and driving, what could happen to them, and their families. By having scenarios like that it would more likely convince the teen not to do it because it will shock and scare them. By seeing stats like those, especially the ones that say 1 in 4 teens crash because they were texting and driving would stay with them for their whole life and would be scared to do it. Also, make them tell them how much their insurance and damage cost if they get in a crash. Another way is to make it a law not to text and drive. As in if cameras or even cops see you, you get pulled over automatically and get a ticket. Depending on how many times you have been caught doing it the price increases. They would make teens stop because the cost of doing it would be worth it at all.