Texting While Driving: Is It Really Worth It?

  One of the greatest technological innovations that has evolved is the cell phone.  When first released, they were huge bricks with large antennas; fast forward to present day and they can fit in the palm of your hand.   In the past, being able to place a call from anywhere other than a landline was the ultimate convenience.  Today, people conduct their daily lives from their cell phones, from online banking, to booking trips and keeping up to the second with world news, cell phones and their convenience have become seemingly irreplaceable. 

 

While a cell phone can be a saviour, put in the wrong hands, it can also be as dangerous as a loaded gun.  Texting while driving has claimed too many lives and sadly, even with new legislation, fines and penalties put in place by provincial governments, the number is not shrinking, but growing.  If this seems to be a little bit of a stretch to you, take a look at the statistics:

 

- Canadians send ten million text messages per hour.

 

 

-Text messaging while driving makes a crash 23 times more likely.

 

- Texting drivers' reaction times deteriorate by 35%

 

 

- 82% of teenagers aged 16-17 now own cellphones, and are considered the most at-risk

demographic for texting behind the wheel.

 

-When talking on a mobile phone, drivers are shown to be 18 percent slower to react to brake lights.

 

-Drivers are more cautious while conversing; however, they take 17 percent longer to return to regular speeds after breaking, which, understandably, frustrates following traffic

 

-Drivers talking on mobile phones are responsible for 2,600 deaths and 330,000 injuries annually.

 

 

-In Canada, 6 people die every day in road crashes with more than 218,000 injuries and  2,900 deaths just since January 1, 2011.

 

 

-One out of 4 car crashes is caused by distracted drivers using a cell phone.

 

 

-Texting while driving is equivalent to drinking 4 beers and then getting behind the wheel.

1 in 5 adult drivers admit to using a cell phone while driving.

 

 

-1 in 2 teens admit to texting or calling while behind the wheel of a car.

 

 

The next time your phone rings while driving, think before you reach for it.  Is that text message really worth your life?  Or worse, worth the life of an innocent stranger?  The Southbank Family is taking the pledge to be phone free while driving. 

Will you join us?