Why Is Texting While Driving Persuasive Essay

Even though it is difficult to enforce, texting while driving should be made illegal nationwide due to an increased risk of being involved in an accident and diverts attention from driving. With the substantial advancement in communication technologies, cell phones have become an important part of national culture and are being used every day by people of nearly all ages. They are utilized during dinners, watching television, school, walking and more significantly, driving. Although drunk driving, not wearing seat belts, and speeding are still prevalent issues across the globe, the usage of mobile phones are increasingly receiving attention in regards to their effect on driving performance and road safety (Benedetto, Calvi, and D’Amico.) They

Distractions are one of many things that can be the catalyst of a car accident, and when there are accidents, there are possibilities of injuries, damages, and even death. Driving already puts people in risky situations because handling a car is a machine, it is not a bike, which means there are more safety precautions to be taken and requires a focused mind to operate such vehicle. Adding a phone, a device one might be addicted to, to driving is a recipe for tragedy. Not only will the driver be risking his or her own life, but he or she is also jeopardizing the passengers, if any, as well as the people who are outside of the car. “The human brain just isn’t capable of doing several things at once and giving full attention to all of them,” says D’Arcy Lyness, an adolescent psychologist (Bratsis.) Research discloses the amount of concentration required for driving safely makes texting safely simultaneously unfeasible (Bratsis.) When it comes to texting, it requires visual, manual and cognitive attention from the driver, which is why it is considered the most life threatening distraction (NHTSA.) In 2011, at least 23 percent of car collisions, which is 1.3 million crashes, involved the use of a cell phone (Texting and Driving.) Texting while driving makes a driver twenty-three times more likely to crash and when answering a text, it diverts

A few years ago, the Ad Council decided to work with the office of the State Attorneys General and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration to create a campaign targeting young adult drivers to express the possible repercussions they could encounter, while engaging in a seemingly harmless act. The campaign has developed Public Service Advertising to be implemented into television, the internet, radio and even within social media networks to further spread the issue, ultimately influencing people to their website to learn techniques to rid the daring behavior. AT&T has recently released a campaign as well and address the issue through multiple ways, but one form of tactic includes a pledge on their “It Can Wait” website allowing people to make a commitment to never text and drive, while holding themselves accountable to a loved one (It Can Wait.) Documentaries and national television commercials have also been released by AT&T to showcase how vital and serious of an issue this is by using actual stories of those whose lives have been severely altered (It Can Wait.) As everyone may be familiar with the saying, “there’s an app for that,” AT&T actually offers a free mobile application for Android and Blackberry called, DriveMode. This app allows users to create an auto-reply message that notifies the people who send a text message, call