Can you easily translate the title of this blog post? Then this topic directly relates to you. If you have kids with cell phones, this directly relates to you! “Do You Text and Drive?” is the question, and if you do, you are not only breaking the law, but also putting your life in danger.
Last week, a young female driver in Olmsted County was texting on her cell phone while driving, drifted over the fog line of the road, overcorrected and the car hit a power pole. Several people were taken to the hospital for evaluation. This needs to be a message to all teen drivers, parents of teen drivers, and all drivers in general that cell phones have no place in a car when you’re driving.
Studies show texting while driving is even worse than if you were drunk or high while driving. Reaction time is slowed by 35% when texting. This is a recipe for disaster. There have been cases across the country of fatalities due to cell phone use while driving:
- Police in suburban Phoenix blamed a teen’s text-messaging habit for a head-on crash that killed two people. Ashley D. Miller, 18, wasn’t wearing a seat belt and was texting on her cell phone while driving in Peoria, Ariz., when her Ford pickup crossed a lane and smashed into a Chrysler PT Cruiser, killing 40-year-old driver Stacey A. Stubbs.
- The engineer of a Metrolink train that crashed in a head-on collision near Chatsworth, California, was chatting via text message with a teenager moments before the crash, according to the Orange County Register. Twenty five people were killed in this crash.
- In Canandaigua, N.Y., text messages were sent and received on a 17-year-old driver’s cell phone moments before the sport utility vehicle slammed head-on into a truck, killing her and four other recent high school graduates.
Drivers, please, put down the cell phones when driving. Parents, prohibit your young drivers to use cell phones, especially texting, while driving. As a parent, I’d even go so far as to look at your next monthly cell phone bill statement and see what times text messages are being sent to make sure it doesn’t coincide with times your young drivers are on the road. It may seem extreme, but you’ll wish you had if something tragic were to happen.
Minnesota Statute: https://www.revisor.leg.state.mn.us/bin/bldbill.php?bill=H3726.0.html&session=ls85
