Driving while texting is not only incredibly dangerous, it is extremely distracting and can cause you to hurt yourself or another person if you are not careful.
Remember the days when cell phones didn't even exist yet? Well, I am old enough to remember, and I can also remember that back then, there weren't nearly as many car accidents as there are now.
In the state of North Carolina, driving while texting and/or sending emails was banned.
If you are caught driving while texting, you can actually receive a pretty hefty fiduciary penalty for doing so.
If you think about the concept behind this while driving, you have to see that it really doesn't make sense.
How bored are we as a nation that we can't even stand to sit at a stopped light for two seconds without obsessively checking our phones? Similarly, there are even more of us who can't ever seem to put our cell phones down! We insist on having them in our hands at all times, even when we are behind the wheel of our cars! For many of us, doing this while driving has become such a problem that it doesn't even seem to matter whether or not the police officers see us doing it or even if we receive citations for it.
On one talk show that I was watching a couple of months ago, the talk show host was interviewing a seventeen year-old girl who had received numerous tickets and warnings due to her excessive text messaging.
What was perhaps more shocking was the fact that she had been involved in several car accidents as a result of text messaging.
Still, while she admitted that she knew her text messaging was a problem, she also stated that she didn't really care because she still enjoyed doing it! Admittedly, I have sent out text messages and have checked my email and/or Facebook account while driving on the road.
Usually, this is done by sneaking several quick peaks at your cell phone while also trying to keep your eyes on the road.
After a while, I decided that it wasn't worth it.
Now, whenever I go somewhere in my car, I either turn my phone off or put it on the 'vibrate' setting.
On occasion, I have even taken my cell phone and have put it inside of my bag in the trunk of my car! While you may not need to go to all of these extremes, know that there is life without your cell phone in your hand- especially when you are driving somewhere! If you are lost or need directions and you are in a busy area, pull your car over to the side of the road and call for directions.
Never try to look at directions or figure out directions via scribbled notes while you are driving.
All it takes is one second to make you get into a car accident, and that is one second too much that you cannot afford to risk.