Friday, April 26, 2013

New Approaches to End Texting While Driving


Most people are aware of the dangers of driving while intoxicated, but what about driving while intexticated?


Intextication, says California Highway Patrol officer Brian Pennings, occurs when someone becomes disengaged with his or her surroundings because s/he is too mentally occupied with a cell phone. While intextication can cause people to make mistakes at home or at work, its most serious cases generally occur while driving. According to Pennings, drivers who are texting are twice as likely to crash than those driving under the influence of alcohol.

Pennings says teens and adults alike often blame others on the road for distracted driving, believing themselves to be the only ones able to multitask behind the wheel, yet no one can safely drive and text simultaneously. Texting is twice as dangerous as talking on the phone or to passengers while driving, and distracted driving is a factor in 90% of collisions.

One way of eliminating driving distractions is to install a no-texting app onto cell phones. Several available apps automatically send calls to voice mail and silence texts when inside a moving vehicle. Some apps also send automated messages to callers saying, “Sorry, I can’t take your call right now, I’m driving.” Others allow parents to remotely cut teens’ cell phone service while they are driving. Many of these apps can be found in the App Store and the Google Play market, and some service providers including AT&T and Sprint offer anti-texting apps to customers when purchasing a new phone. While Pennings recommends these apps, he thinks they will be slow to catch on and adds that state and local governments likely cannot mandate use of such apps due to complaints that such legislation violates personal freedom.

“The reason why it’s so important to be mentally engaged when you’re driving is because [driving] is multitasking, you have to do more than one thing at once,” Pennings says. “It comes down to adult decision, and you have to make a conscientious decision.”