by Ashley Ramer
Photo by Alyssa Marquez
Ten percent of teen drivers admit to texting while driving.
Texting and driving can be one of the most dangerous things drivers can do. While texting, drivers take their eyes off of the road for more than a length of a football field while driving at the speed of 55 mph.
“It’s a terrible thing,” said Officer Mark Ellenberger, Brevard High School resource officer. “It should be outlawed. It’s dangerous.”
In 2011 alone, over 23% of motor vehicle crashes involved the use of a cellphone by the driver–more than 1.3 million crashes.
Some people think that they can text and drive with no problem; however, the DMV, or department of motor vehicles, requires a vision screening to acquire any class of drivers license or a permit. If drivers text behind the wheel, they are basically driving blind.
“Yeah, my brother texts and drives all of the time,” said Zeb Landreth, sophomore. “Everytime he does it I think I’m going to die. It’s stupid.”
Because of so many people texting and driving and saying it’s not an issue, a course was set up for a few lucky drivers. In this course, drivers had to carry out a conversation using texting while driving a car through a course with orange cones as obstacles. The highest speed reached with the driver not hitting any cones was 20 mph.
“Everytime I see someone using a cell phone while driving, I think ‘God help them,'” said Bailey Minugh, sophomore.
Many organizations have been set up to raise awareness of the dangers of texting and driving. Many members of those organizations are everyday people, grieving the loss of their loved ones who either passed away or had been terribly injured in wrecks caused by texting and driving.
One organization, It Can Wait, has raised awareness to through its online pledge campaign. More than 5,268,807 people have pledged at www.itcanwait.com to never text and drive.