Impact of Texting and Driving on Public Safety: A Detailed Report

This report addresses the critical issue of texting while driving in the United States, highlighting its impact on public safety and the alarming increase in accidents. It emphasizes that distracted driving, particularly texting, is a major concern, especially among teenagers. The report provides statistics on fatalities, and the involvement of various age groups in such incidents. It analyzes the consequences of distracted driving, including social impacts, and mentions the measures taken by different states to combat this problem. The report also references scientific studies and governmental reports, including those from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration and Virginia Tech Transportation, to underscore the severity of the issue. Furthermore, it outlines existing laws and regulations, such as bans on handheld cell phones and texting while driving, aiming to raise awareness and encourage safer driving practices. The report concludes with a call to generate awareness and encourage people to stop texting while driving.

Running head: TEXTING AND DRIVING
TEXTING AND DRIVING
Name of the Student:
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In the United States of America, texting while driving has become a common
problem, and many incidents of death and fatal accidents have taken place, due to this reason.
Distracted driving has become a major concern for the states of the country. The increasing
numbers of mishaps in the country, have included the term “distracted driving’, in the
dictionary (Coben, & Zhu, 2013).
Distracted driving refers to any activities that diverts the attention of a person, from
the act of driving. The in attentiveness can get created from various activities, like, drinking,
conversing over phone, eating, checking the navigation system or may be, texting while
driving (Hill et al., 2015). However, according to a recent report, texting while driving is the
most common phenomenon, and the count of accidents, due to that has reached an alarming
stage.
Driving is an activity that, needs full attention, and not being attentive to the road,
even for five seconds, can result into something very fatal and dangerous. In a recent report,
published by the United States Department of Transportation, it has been seen, that the
majority of the accidents and the incidents are taken place among the teen- agers of the
country, as a whole. Last year, approximately 3200 deaths were reported officially to the
Transportation Department of the country (Hill et al., 2015). Almost, all the reports of death
that have been projected or have been highlighted by the media of the country, are related to
the teenage groups. However, such situation of accident and mishaps have taken place among
the grown up men as well.
Consequences of distracted driving includes diverse factors, and is impacting upon the
social lives of the people. The Queensland University of Technology have clarified and
evidenced the fact, that, texting and driving is a major social concern for the company. The
scientific study of the situation has resulted into the understanding that texting or browsing,

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while driving is one of the most common and popular phenomenon, which is negatively
impacting upon the safety critical driving measures, governing within the country (Hill et al.,
2015). Another recent report, that had included the general understanding, that, since
conversing over phone, while driving, is full of negative consequences, therefore, it is likely
that the texting while driving, will have even more grave consequences, and the study had
resulted, showing that almost 89% people in the country, are involved into such a behaviour,
and the study had suggested that most of the adults, from whom the collected data had been
gathered, have stated that the texting, or conversing over the phone, are also encouraged and
done by the organization as well (Schroeder et al., 2018). The number of such incidents are
increasing with time, and in a report it is found that the parents, who are concerned about the
lives of their children, are themselves, involved in such behaviours. Moreover, the repot has
showed that half of the drivers aging 16 to 24, texts while driving, and, almost 22% of the
overall drivers, in the country, are aging 35 to 44. All these have resulted into increased
numbers of accidents, increased number of death, especially among the youth and the teen
agers (Stavrino et al., 2013). Therefore, each of the states of the country have taken certain
effective measures, to account and address these situations.
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, reported that, among all the
fatal accidents taking place on the National Highway, 18% of them are caused because of
Distracted Driving (Schroeder et al., 2018).
According to the Virginia Tech Transportation, texting and driving, makes the
chances of accidents 23% worse than the accidents related to driving when the driver is not
distracted.
Also, researches have shown that only, an eleven percentage of the teen age car crash
accidents, that take place, are not because of distracted driving (Klauer et al., 2014).

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Including Washington D. C., Puerto Rico and Guam, 19 of the sates of America have
banned the hand held cell phones while driving. The primary enforcement laws of these states
allow the police officers to take steps, against the driver even if no other traffic rule is broken.
Washington D. C. and other 39 states have also banned the All Cell Phone us, for the novice
drivers and for the school bus drivers. Also, all the states, except for New Hampshire and
Connecticut, include at least on distraction category in the crash report forms. Also, 48 states,
including, Washington D.C., U.S. Virgin, Puerto Rico and Guam have banned texting while
driving, and all of these acts are considered to be punishable offense (Schroeder et al., 2018).
Texting and driving is one of the worst scenario of accident and many celebrities are
voicing against it, to generate awareness among the people.

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References:
Coben, J. H., & Zhu, M. (2013). Keeping an eye on distracted driving. JAMA, 309(9), 877-
878.
Hill, L., Rybar, J., Styer, T., Fram, E., Merchant, G., & Eastman, A. (2015). Prevalence of
and attitudes about distracted driving in college students. Traffic injury
prevention, 16(4), 362-367.
Klauer, S. G., Guo, F., Simons-Morton, B. G., Ouimet, M. C., Lee, S. E., & Dingus, T. A.
(2014). Distracted driving and risk of road crashes among novice and experienced
drivers. New England journal of medicine, 370(1), 54-59.
Schroeder, P., Wilbur, M., Pena, R., & Abt, S. R. B. I. (2018). National survey on distracted
driving attitudes and behaviors-2015 (No. DOT HS 812 461). United States. National
Highway Traffic Safety Administration.
Stavrinos, D., Jones, J. L., Garner, A. A., Griffin, R., Franklin, C. A., Ball, D., ... & Fine, P.
R. (2013). Impact of distracted driving on safety and traffic flow. Accident Analysis &
Prevention, 61, 63-70.