Reducing the driver texting while driving can significant reduce the Essay

Reducing the driver texting while driving can significant reduce the number of car accident - Essay Example Texting while driving kills thousands of people each year. To stop these completely preventable accidents, every person who drives needs to stop texting in the car and wait to answer the phone. Distracted driving, which is the practice of not paying full attention to the road, is a big killer, and cell phone usage is one key factor. According to the FCC, in 2012 alone â€Å"driver distraction was the cause of 18 percent of all fatal crashes,† totaling more than 3300 deaths and over 421,000 injured people (FCC). While there are a number of ways that drivers could be distracted in their car, text messaging stands out as a very notable culprit. There are a huge amount of at-risk drivers who use cell phones. A poll from 2014 showed that 90% of all Americans own cell phones, 64% of which are smartphones (Pew Research Center). On top of that, studies have found that â€Å"text messaging creates a crash risk 23 times worse than driving while not distracted† (FCC). This is because, as can be imagined, the driver of a car who is trying to text has his or her attention split between a screen and the road. Distracted driving accidents have increased a lot in the past decade due to an increase in cell phone and smartphone usage. From 1999 to 2008, there was an increase of almost five percent in the number of fatal accidents which involved distracted driving (Wilson & Stimpson 2214). This makes sense when thinking about the increase in cell phone usage during that time. And the last few years of this period are the biggest increase, which ties in with more smart phones being popular for teenagers. Just from 2005 to 2008 there was an increase of 28% in distracted driving deaths (Wilston & Stimpson 2214). But there is still hope for the texting disaster. As Alosco et al. showed in a simulated driving study, texting as well as eating caused â€Å"impaired performance,† and interestingly, those who took part in the study after the fact understood that â€Å"texting