by
7
Texting and driving a car at the same time is a dangerous and irresponsible combination — but people do it anyway. A series of sparse, haunting public service ads from AT&T provides a spooky reminder that even sending or receiving short messages can lead to death or lifelong crippling injury.
The numbers back this up, too. Results vary, but some studies have found that upwards of 20% of all car accidents involve cellphone use of some kind. That can total more than a million collisions per year that might have been avoided without cellphones involved.
A government report from 2009, meanwhile, found that texting makes a car crash a whopping 23 times more likely than if drivers were simply focused on the road.
Other studies have reported equally disturbing results, but states are fighting back by passing laws that prohibit talking and texting on cellphones while behind the wheel. Still, laws can only go so far and people continue to text and drive.
The Internet education portal OnlineSchools.com recently rounded up findings and reports from sources including the The Washington Post, the Governors Highway Safety Association, Virginia Tech University and others to produce the infographic below. Check it out for a rundown on how much people text and drive, and let us know in the comments — why do you think people continue doing something that clearly puts their own lives and those of others at serious risk?
Courtesy of: Online Schools
Thumbnail image via iStockphoto, 4774344sean
![With Nexus 7, Google Finally Gets Android Tablets Right [REVIEW]](http://8.mshcdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/125,Google-nexus7-600.jpg)
That our behavior must Razir
Unboxing: Google Nexus 7 tablet [Video]
http://goo.gl/f9qgw
Here is the video to go with the above article The impossible texting & driving test: http://youtu.be/HbjSWDwJILs
I honestly, did not know the problem was quite this bad. I knew it was a problem just hadn’t seen hard data. I seem to remember once trying to text and drive and being scared *blank*-less over it. I think I probably pulled over once I realized that. As for talking on the phone, I don’t like doing that if I can avoid it when I’m stationary, so, driving is the perfect excuse to ignore the phone. These days I ride a motorcycle, which already has me hyper aware of my surroundings but these figures kind of scare me.
Honest i think the cops should go after slow drivers too besides the texters
I got hit while on my motorcycle at a red light – fortunately slow speed hit approached driver she through phone down
Listened to an interview of on this issue a month ago and learned that all the states that enacted laws making texting an offense that could get you pulled over, had an increase in texting while driving accidents.
Why? Because now the people texting have to also hide the phone in their lap, so they are even more unaware than before. Great law!
We can’t make driving while stupid against the law. It would be great, but we can’t. Making laws like this can do more harm than good.
Two surprising data in the infographic above are:
- teens are less likely to get in a crash because of phones and texting
- only 82% of Americans age 16-17 own a mobile phone. Seriously? @-)