Persuasive Essay On Texting And Driving In The United States

Texting while driving is a large taboo in this country. We are told not to text while driving in school. We are shown the tragic advertisements, the heart wrenching statistics, but all of this still leaves a disconnect. It can never happen to me is an unfortunate assumption that most of us make everyday without even intending to be self-centered. The idea that we could cause ourselves or others harm is a mood point that few care to consider, but we must if we are ever going to face the epidemic that has swiftly becoming the fourth leading cause of death in America, with 25% of all the 1,600,000 deaths, 330,000 injuries, and 130,557 car crashes per year, being 100% preventable, if only we did not text and drive.

In the pursuit for statistics, I found staggering numbers on teens and young adults and their reckless behavior behind the wheel. In AT&T's Teen Driver Survey, 97% of teens agree that texting while driving is dangerous, and yet 43% do it anyway. Teens who text while driving spend 10% of the time outside of their lane, and yet 77% of young adults are very or somewhat confident that they can safely text and drive, and 55% of young adults claim it’s easy to text while driving.
According to the National Highway Transportation Safety Administration, texting while driving is the same as driving after drinking four beers. Similar to drunk driving, texting and driving is not without its casualties. Car crashes are the single largest cause of death in healthy U.S. citizens annually, with over 1,600 children under the age of 15 dying each year, and nearly 8,000 people are killed in crashes involving drivers ages 16-20, with 11 teen deaths every day according to the Institute for Highway Safety Fatality