Do you ever wonder what it would be like to get a call by the emergency room saying that a loved one was killed or seriously injured in a car crash? One day this nightmare came true for the parents of Dana Trammell. Dana was a 17 year old texting a friend on her way to her first day as a senior when she crashed and went through her windshield and thrown away from the car. She was pronounced dead at the scene. More and more people are getting these calls because there are more distractions now including texting while driving (DWT). Driving while texting has become a major issue because the statistics say that twenty- fife percent of all car accidents happen from texting on a phone. More people need to know the statistics and know how dangerous it can be. The percents go up higher when you look at drivers of bigger vehicle, and the age group of drivers.

When driving there are many things in this world that can be considered distractions. Driving is a very complex responsibility and you can’t afford to be distracted. Some of the distraction are radios, extra people in the car, eating and the worst of all our cell phones. Cell phones are the biggest distraction drivers can have. If a driver is going fifty-five miles per hour takes their eyes off the road for 4.6 sec to check a text or to type in a number into their phone that is equal to driving the length of a football field. They also say that if a driver takes their eyes of the road for that amount of time 10% of them serve in to the other lane. If drivers need to text that bad and can’t wait till they get out of the car or can’t pull over to read a text then the best idea for them is to have their phone out of site or to find a designated texter who can text their friends for the driver while they keep all of their focus on the road. When looking some of the statistic when you look at larger vehicles and younger people the more the statistics go up.

First would be drivers of larger vehicles. When you pull your attention to a distraction the easier it is to lose control. Experts say that because the vehicles are heavier and bigger the harder its going to be to get it back under your control before you gets into a crash. The statistics are that truck drivers are twenty-three percent more likely to get into a crash due to texting behind the wheel. When truck driver or someone that drives for a living drive all day and all night usually that is what leads them to text or call someone because they want to talk or text to their families but they never really think that that may be the last thing that they or someone else does.

Texting and driving be more dangerous when you get lower in age. Texting is a big thing in the teen years. On average when driving teenagers text 2, 899 text in a month. That means that these teenage drivers are looking away from the road 2,899 in a month to send a couple words that could have waited till they got home to send them. The younger the driver the more likely the person is to get distracted faster, and it doesn’t take as much to make young drivers distracted.

If we got rid of cell phones all together whether it is adults or teenagers we can save many lives. As Anne Donnegan says “more people may have to die in DWT accidents, before legislation eventually see the light and pass a bill banning all cell phone use.” If we got rid of cell phones all together and maybe some of the other big distractions just think of how many people we are saving from getting that phone call saying their loved one was injured or hurt in a car accident because someone didn’t pay attentions to what they were doing and didn’t keep their eyes and attention on the road.