Dying To Text…

     While driving into downtown Pittsburgh last week it was obvious to me that the person in the vehicle in front of me was preoccupied with something other than driving. Their car drifted in and out of the adjoining lane and continuously slowed to about 5mph under the speed limit then sped up to 10mph over it. If you posed this scenario to drivers today most, if not all of them would already know the cause if this erratic and dangerous driving. TEXTING!

     I looked into the left side rear view mirror our busy friend and was not at all surprised to see that her eyes appeared closed. This of course was due to the fact that she was looking down while sending that message that was apparently worth the risk of an accident. I was not at all surprised. What did surprise me that it was not a young adult as I would have suspected, but a middle aged woman. Sound like anyone you know?

     Texting has become as much a part of our society as video games, computer dating, and blogging and can be a very convenient and useful tool when used with a little common sense. Unfortunately having common sense and exercising it do not always go hand in hand and in this case the result can be deadly! According to a University of Utah study using a driver simulator, people who text while driving are 8 times more likely to crash. The Virginia Tech Transportation Institute found that truckers sending text messages are 23 times more likely to cause an accident than a nontexting trucker.

     The need for help to make our highways safe for everyone is once again an issue and while uniformed officers do their best to remove drunk drivers from our roads, in many states there is little that they can do to stop the texting madmen and women who are sure that they will not be the one to hurt anyone. That help may arrive in the form of the Alert Drivers Act of 2009, a Senate bill proposed by Senator Charles Schumer of New York. The effectiveness of this bill comes in its requirement that states that do not adopt federally set minimum penalties for texting while driving will forfeit 25% of federal highway financing. For those of you that are quick to use the S word (Socialism) I welcome your solution to this problem. Please email via this website.

THINK!