When You're Distracted, Who's Driving

Perdue2

McKenna Perdue

11/7/2019

College Prep

Mrs. Bruner

When You’re Distracted, Who’s Driving

Distracted driving is one of the fastest growing problems in the United States. One of the most dangerous, distracting activities that most people do is text while driving. This is extremely dangerous because people who do this are putting more attention in texting, and they take their eyes off the road while they are driving. This increases the chance that the driver can lose control of the vehicle causing a crash or ever worse, could kill other people. When people are texting and driving, they are thinking about other things besides concentration on the road. This is very dangerous because it could make the driver lose control of the car and slow their brain’s reaction time in case of an accident. Though texting and driving caused many injuries and deaths, there are still people who don’t think it’s a problem and are confident that they can use their phone and drive simultaneously.

In 2019 distracted driving was a reported factor in 8.5% of fatal motor vehicle crashes (https://www.thezebra.com/distracted-driving-statistics/). In the United States about nine people are killed everyday due to car crashes involving a distracted driver (https://carsurance.net/blog/distracted-driving-statistics/). Some things that make people a distracted driver are fiddling with the radio, not keeping their eyes on the road, and texting and driving. With that being said, 21% of teen drivers involved in a car accident were distracted by their cell phones (https://carsurance.net/blog/distracted-driving-statistics/). Also, 3,477 people died and 391,000 were injured in motor vehicle crashes caused by drivers who used cell phones (https://www.personalinjurysandiego.org/topis/facts-about-texting-driving/).

To break these habits, people can either turn off their phone or put it on silent before driving. This will force them to concentrate on the road only. This will allow their eyes to focus on the road instead of a phone. By doing this, drivers are keeping themselves and the others in the car safe as well as saving others’ lives by not getting distracted. People never know when is the last time they might see someone, drivers do everyone a favor quit texting and driving.