I was texting my daughter to ask when she would be home for dinner on a late afternoon. She texted back, I will be there soon. She never made it. I killed my own daughter because of a lousy text message. Good afternoon, my name is Rebecca Wilson and today I will be speaking about why texting and driving should be banned. Over 10,000 people are killed and over 50,000 are injured from text messaging and knowing that my little girl was one of the 10,000 people that have been killed by this each year makes me heartbroken. That’s why I want to change this for the better. I would do anything to stop unnecessary and tragic deaths of young people from texting worldwide and that is why I am saying this speech to you today.
Firstly, texting and driving must be banned because it is very hazardous not only to the person who is texting and driving, but for the other drivers and pedestrians. If a person is texting and driving, they are multitasking and paying more attention to their phone than the safety of the other drivers and pedestrians. This causes a great amount of car accidents every year. While driving, adults and teenagers cannot resist the urge to pick up their cell phone and send a text or respond to one. When the driver feels or hears the vibration or ring, nothing can stop them from checking the notification on their phone. As soon as the driver’s eyes meet their cellular device, their focus on the road is drawn away making not only their lives in danger but the lives of other people on the road as well. In 2011, 9,750 lives were taken and 448,000 people got injured from car accidents from being distracted while driving. The lives of innocent people are being taken every day, due to a simple distraction. You could stop this by introducing increased fines, jail sentence and public shaming as a law for texting whilst driving.
Furthermore, texting and driving must be banned because it distracts you from the road. Also, it is unsafe to only use one hand while driving. I once saw a study on TV that showed how much someone's eyes move around to check out their surroundings while driving and then the study showed how little they move around while driving and texting on a phone. People managed just fine back in the days before cell phones; we should all be able to manage without them for a 15 minute or 30 minute drive or however a long car drive. A safe following distance on the freeway is 4 seconds. If you are texting and the person in front of you suddenly stops and your eyes aren’t on the road, even if you are only looking away for seconds to text, it will not be enough time to stop before colliding. This distraction will most certainly cause a car accident because 5 seconds is the minimal amount of time it takes to send a text message.
Finally, texting and driving must be banned because it causes so much grief on the family in the case of a fatality. When you text and drive you’re not only hurting yourself but you are hurting other people. I'm sure you don't want to go to your sons or daughters funeral because of a text like I had too. No text is that important it can wait. If your message can’t wait pull over and send it don’t destroy your own life or anyone else’s life because of it. You don’t want to end up being ashamed for the rest of your life. Too many people aren’t caring enough about this because there is an estimated 65% of drivers are texting and driving every single day.
To conclude, texting and driving must be banned because it is very hazardous not only to the person who is texting and driving, but for the other drivers and pedestrians on the road, it distracts you from the road and it causes so much grief on the family in the case of a fatality. If you want to live for another day, don’t text and drive, you will regret it!
Thank you for listening.
h
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