One of the biggest lies that’s bubbled up in this country in the last ten years or so is that when you text and drive, it’s harmless.
People figure that if they’ve never crashed while texting, then distracted driving must not be dangerous. But what’s funny about safety is that you never know you’ll get into an accident until it happens.
Accidents come out of nowhere. They’re completely unexpected. If you text and drive, you’ll get into an accident eventually. It’s only a matter of time.
But if you don’t want to become another sad statistic, read on…
5 More Reasons Why We Don’t Text & Drive:
Fact #1. 77% of young drivers feel confident they can drive safely while texting. For some reason, texting just doesn’t make it into the equation when new drivers think about roadway safety. If only 77% of young drivers were correct in their thinking. Hint: They’re not.
Fact #2. Communicating by cellphone can make your reaction time on the road that of someone who is fifty years older than you. Of course, there are a lot of great drivers who are 50 years older than you. But here’s the point: When you operate a cellphone while driving, your reaction time is slow as molasses compared to what it’d be if you paid attention.
Fact #3. When you answer a text, it takes your attention away from the road for about five seconds (whether that’s broken up or not). This statistic states that on the highway, you travel about the length of a football field in five seconds. That means you’re pretty much blindfolding yourself while driving. And there’s no touchdown at the end of this hundred yards!
Fact #4. Using your device while driving makes you four times more likely to experience a collision. You’re gambling with fate here. Not just your own. When you text and drive, you’re 400% more likely to crash. Those are sobering statistics if you think distracted driving is OK.
Fact #5. Texting while driving slows your reaction time to that of a drunk driver. Don’t believe it? It’s true. Texting while driving is like buzzed or drunk driving. When you shoot a text with one hand on the wheel, you’re just not “all there,” which threatens not only your safety, but also everyone else’s.
Safety is one of the single most important priorities in the trucking industry. So it’s important recent grads understand this before they take truck driving to the next level.
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