Texting While Driving Research Paper

The National Safety Council states that: “cell phone use while driving causes 1.6 million crashes each year.” Texting while driving is mostly operated by teenagers, but as society develops a lot of adults are starting to contribute to it as well. Texting while driving is very distracting to the driver. Texting while driving has also become a recent and huge problem in our communities. About 78 percent of people own cell phones today and just imagine how many of those people own and operate a vehicle. A lot of people like to use social media while driving such as snapchat, facebook, twitter or instagram and that is just as equally as bad while driving. Some other people like to play games while driving. Cell phone companies have evolved phones
so much that people can’t put them down so they can be safe on the road. Just imagine if you killed someone because you were the last person who texted them and caused them to get into a severe accident and die; how that would make you feel and follow you everywhere you go. People like to say that driving while intoxicated is less dangerous than texting while driving and that is completely true. Many people think they can multitask, but really only two percent of people can successfully multitask in different areas. Texting while driving should be illegal in every state based on it using your cognitive, manual, and visual attention. Most people do not understand what cognitive actually means and represents. According to the Merriam-Webster Dictionary, cognitive is of, relating to, or involving conscious mental activities. Those activities can range anywhere from thinking to reasoning to remembering. While driving your brain needs to be focused on navigating where you want to go or where your destination is located. For instance, if you are texting while driving your brain will focus on what the message is saying. If you are driving and you look down at your phone to see if that special someone texted you back, that could lead you daydreaming and causing an accident. Your phone is distracting point blank and we all know that! It is not only distracting to you, but to others around you. Let's say parents text and drive, most likely the children are going to do the same. Children think if their parents can do it, so can they. Fifteen percent of young and new drivers have watched their parents text and drive. Texting while driving is distracting to the person sitting in the passenger seat. They are looking down at your phone just like you are. They won’t be able to warn you about something. There could be stuff in the road, a car in your lane, a animal crossing and that would led to a nasty scene. The eyes should be focused on the vehicle and what is going on around inside and out the vehicle.
Another operation used while texting and driving is your manual attention. According to the Merriam-Webster Dictionary, manual means of or relating to using the hands. When operating and driving a vehicle the eyes need to be so focused on the road ahead and definitely not a cell phone. If glancing at your phone for one second or two, a deer could come out of nowhere and you would hit it. Glancing at your cell phone for a little bit of time can also led people to crashing into another car if they stop suddenly. There should not be any roaming eyes looking at a phone. The only roaming eyes you should have while driving is looking at your dashboard and at your mirrors. If there is something in the lane and you are looking at your phone replying to a text message, a fatal car crash can happen because they were not paying attention to the steering wheel or road.
The last piece of brain texting while driving uses is the visual attention. According to the Merriam-Webster Dictionary visual means relating to seeing or to the eyes. Visual attention focuses on three main things and ideas. Your eyes need to be focused on the road so they can see potential problems or crashes. Our brain needs to be focused on where you are heading next, how your getting there, and where the destination is located. People also need to be aware of potential animals that may be nearby or focused in a certain area of land or property. People also need to be aware of sharp curves or turns. Even, maybe tractors or cars passing by on opposite lanes. When your eyes daze off into space, your hands tend to follow your eyes.
On the other hand there are other car operations that take up your attention while driving. A lot of people listen to the radio while they are driving because it keeps them cool, calm, and collective. Most people like to turn the station when they are playing ads or a song they really are not interested in hearing. When you change the radio station, you are taking your eyes off the road to find that perfect station or song. Most people take their food to go or on the road. That has to be very dangerous, but yet the people have to be very talented in order to eat and drive. You have to open the food up and look at it before you eat it, and trust me that takes your eyes off the road for a long time. see a lot of girls using their vanity mirror while driving to do their make up. That is also very dangerous! Some girls do not even have one hand on the steering wheel because their makeup needs to be done with both hands. Another distraction could be passengers in your car. There does not need to be a lot of commotion going on in the vehicle. People like to make up a ton of excuses for why they text and drive. Some people are like they can text without looking, they were at a stoplight, or there was nobody around me on the road.
Texting while driving uses and interrupts all of those processes.
Every time you look down at your phone, your eyes are off the road for an average of 4.6 seconds. That is plenty of time for a crash to happen. Texting while driving is severely dangerous on the road while operating a vehicle. Texting while driving interrupts it cognitively as you think about the texting message instead of on the road. It interrupts it manually as your fingers type the message back to another person. It interrupts it visually as you look down at your phone. All of these are reasons why texting while driving should be illegal in every state. The government has started to realize that texting while driving is starting to become a nationwide problem. People do not need to communicate every second, every minute, and every hour of everyday. There are so many sad stories about texting while driving. A lot of innocent people are dying each day because of their actions or because of others and that should not be happening. Texting while driving is not worth killing or dying over! Texting while driving can and needs to wait until it is safe to do so. Don’t just think about yourself, think about all the other people who are operating a vehicle. Be responsible when driving and pay attention to every detail and most importantly, stay off your
phone!