We applaud the decision by Bromfield’s Students Against Destructive Decisions to host a texting-while-driving simulator at the school last week, allowing high-schoolers to directly experience the dangers of texting while driving (see “Simulation shows students the hazards of texting while driving” on page 1). We adults should pay attention as well.
In a survey of adult drivers released by the AAA Foundation in 2012, 80.7 percent said that texting is a very serious threat to safety and 82.9 percent said it is completely unacceptable; however, more than a third (34.7 percent) admitted to reading a text or email while driving in the past 30 days, and more than a quarter (26.6 percent) had typed one.
According to Distraction.com, the U.S. government’s website to combat distracted driving, 3,154 people were killed in motor vehicle crashes involving distracted drivers in 2013, the latest year for which nationwide statistics are available. This represents a 6.7 percent decrease in the number of fatalities recorded in 2012. But unfortunately, the site reports, approximately 424,000 people were injured, which is an increase from the 421,000 people who were injured in 2012, an alarmingly large number.
As far as teens are concerned, 10 percent of drivers of all ages under the age of 20 involved in fatal crashes were reported as distracted at the time of the crash. This age group has the largest proportion of drivers who were distracted.
Studies have shown that laws to ban texting have so far led a 5 percent reduction in distracted-driving accidents at best. A strong dose of common sense would appear to be the best cure.
