Turn Off The Phone: Turn On Your Life

I bet most people don't think of it very often, but do you realize how many little crosses and memorials are put up on alongside of highways and roads? Have you ever read them; reading about the deadly car accidents and deaths that occurred right in that very spot? Or while driving home from work, hearing those stories about the screeching of tires, the roaring of ambulance sirens, watching as metal rips apart metal, leather, and bodies like a highway hurricane? Those terrible accident scenes we cringe about when we hear, all those people we lose yearly because they didn't have the self control or sense to put their phone deep in the depths of their purses, and leave them there until they were out of their cars. Far too many of those crosses and signs are representations of preventable casualties that should not have to exist to represent thousands of lost lives if it wasn't for that one little text, that one poor decision. Yes, texting while drivingis claiming the lives of about 6,000 people yearly, and scratching just wide of 500,000, but leaving gruesome injuries in its deadly path- and those numbers increase annually (more info available here).

Driving is already a challenge enough, like a video game on the last life, and so many drivers feel like they can pile on so much along withthe task of driving. Drunk drivers, young drivers, old drivers, and distracted drivers, all out on that road of responsibility, and when people are constantly diverting their eyes from the road, travelling the length of a football field per 5 seconds going 60 mph, texting about what happened this weekend, are they really focusing on driving? No they're not. Those people who say "Oh, I was just replying to my boyfriend, it's no big deal, he'll get worried if I don't reply." How about if you got in an accident and never arrived? Isn't that more worrying to him than replying to his text when you should be watching the road? I think so; no boyfriend should ever care more about a texting reply than his girlfriend's life.

So why do people text while driving? Why is it so difficult to press the power button and toss it in the backseat? I think texting has had such a powerful, addictive impact on our society, teens and adults today feel that one little text will not make a life or death difference behind the wheel. It goes along with how many teenagers in particular feel when they first receive a licence and those shiny new car keys. It is a new freedom, that often overwhelms new drivers, mentally deceiving them to believe in invincibility. Drivers often know of all the dangers with texting, but think often in the back of their minds that it couldn't ever happen to them, those accidents on tv are miles away, practically in another world. Texting one little "lol" response at a stop light can't hurt anyone can it? But it can, and texting-induced accidents happen every 6 seconds all around the world. The problem is, that one little text turns into a dangerous problem, resulting in a texting response rampage. People often cannot put their phones down, and are constantly in the habit of checking them, which pulls someone's eyes and focus away from the road.

Texting while driving not only endangers your own valuable life, but also brings upon a new issue: the lives of the passengers riding along in your car. They aren't driving the car. Their feet don't control the pedal. They aren't the ones pressing the send button on that last text - that’s all the driver, and essentially, that driver holds his/hers friend's lives between his/her hands and a steering wheel when he/she drives. I don't live others lives. I cannot control what others do, but if nothing persuades people to keep from texting when their driving alone in their car, then there is nothing I can do, they must make your own choices. However, if they think it is okay to put their passengers in danger from a potential accident they are creating, then they shouldn't have earned the right to carry their car keys. Do not put others lives in danger because of a finger-tapping obsession. I would hope one’s friends and family hold more value to someone than a stupid text, so please, leave the phone and drive, keep yourself and friends alive. Let’s not add any more crosses to the sides of roads. Let’s not read anymore shuddering car crash stories. Finally, let’s put a stop to phones lying beaten and scratched on the road shoulder, their screens still blinking, waiting for their owner to finish a text that will never be sent, and a message that will never be received.