By Savannah McDade Posted October 14, 2009
“I remembered being so shocked that someone could be so selfish and irresponsible and kill my husband,” Leila O’Dell, widow of Keith O’Dell killed on September 2006 in Utah. (www.npr.org)
Keith O’Dell and James Furaro were driving to work when 19-year-old Reggie Shaw crossed the yellow dividing line on a two-lane road and clipped O’Dell and Furaro’s vehicle which then spun across the highway and was hit by a pickup hauling a trailer killing the two men instantly. Shaw later admitted (due to phone records) that he was texting his girlfriend while he was driving which caused the collision.
According to New York Times, since the Shaw incident, Utah has buckled down on its texting while driving penalties. In most states, if you are caught texting while driving, you may receive a light fine at most, however, in Utah, if someone is caught texting while driving they face up to three months in jail and a minimum of a $750 fine. If there are injuries or fatalities, the driver who was texting could get a $10,000 fine and a minimum of 15 years in prison. How do they know that you were texting? Argue it all you want, but if you give the courts a legitimate reason, cops have the right to check your phone records.
According to mycellphoneiskillingme.com, the RAC Foundation by the Transport Research Laboratory, researchers found that young drivers’ reaction time slowed by 21% from smoking marijuana, 12% when they were legally drunk, and 35% when they were texting while driving. Scientists also discovered that steering control worsened 35% for drivers who had been smoking marijuana and an amazing 91% for people texting while driving. Also, drivers took three times longer to text while driving than it would normally take to text. In other words, texting while driving is worse than driving under the influence, that is a chilling fact.
This is not hard to understand, anyone who texts should empathize, anyone should understand that texting while driving is dangerous. Think about it, when you’re texting while driving, you’re taking your eyes off of the road… there is no way that can be safe. However, there are some people to claim to be able to text without looking at their phone, I guess to some that might be a reasonable argument, but are they really paying attention to the road, or is their attention primarily focused on their phone? Not only that, but even if you can text without looking, you have to look at your phone in order to read the text in the first place. Regarding this argument, an experiment was conducted in Indianapolis, in which drivers claiming to be able to text and drive without looking at their phones (or text while driving in general) drove through a course while texting as they usually would. These drivers swerved, hit nearly every cone placed on the course, or they were driving leisurely because they were trying to concentrate on their phone, in which case they could have theoretically caused a collision by driving slower than traffic. (wthr.com)
According to a recent article Yahoo news, The Transportation Department reported that 5,870 people were killed last year as well as and 515,000 people injured, all due to driver distraction (mostly involving cell phones), doesn’t that make you feel safe?
According to an informal survey conducted by The Brand in junior and senior English classes, 75% of those students text while driving, 49% on a daily basis, and 4% have been in an accident due to driving while texting This is compared to a mere 25% who don’t text while driving. Of those surveyed, 28% believe that Nevada should pass a law prohibiting texting while driving.
While Nevada has strict laws against driving under the influence of alcohol and drugs, there definitely should be laws against texting while driving. According to an article from The Times, experiments were conducted comparing driving while texting and driving drunk; driving while texting was significantly more evident in terms of swerving and slowing down. It is a shame that laws have to be made to enforce people to use common sense.
