The biggest threat to my personal safety is not guns, or
terrorists, or criminals. It’s people texting and driving. And I’m fed up.
Every single day, I drive on the GW Parkway to and from
work. Every single day, at least one person will be swerving in between lanes.
Every single day, that one person is texting.
Over the holidays, I did far too much driving. From DC to
Connecticut. From Connecticut to Long Island and back. From Connecticut to DC.
Hours upon hours spent in the car, and hours upon hours screaming at people
trying to text and drive.
For all the bluster around distracted driving, the
punishments are simply not strict enough. Especially in light of evidence that
people who are texting on the smartphone literally cannot multi-task. If you
are texting, your brain cannot
support another function.
While texting and driving – commonly referred to as
‘distracted driving’ – is banned in nearly every state, that has only nominally
affected the rate of accidents. According to the CDC, 9 people die every day in
accidents caused by distracted driving. In 2013, 341,000 motor
vehicle accidents involved texting.
These are mind-blowing numbers, yet the issue is given
little more than lip services. Yes, texting and driving is bad, and yes it is
illegal. But if you get caught, it’s just a fine. Did that last speeding ticket
keep you from speeding? Why would a texting ticket keep you from texting?
When I got my license 18 years ago, my biggest concern was
driving at night and avoiding drunk drivers. But it is usually pretty easy to
spot and avoid a drunk driver. They don’t do a very good job of hiding their intoxication,
as their car would swerve absurdly, and you can make a plan in your head in
advance of how to pass the car.
Texting and driving is potentially more dangerous because
there are no warning signs. You’re following a car going 65 in the left lane
and suddenly, they’re going 40. Or the car in the middle lane will inexplicably
cross over to the right lane without a signal, because the driver doesn’t even
know a lane change has happened.
Even worse, and what I deal with too frequently, are
distracted drivers going too slow and causing issues behind them. There is an
average of one fender-bender I pass on a daily basis and I would love to know
how much is caused by smartphone use. Because on a two-lane highway, a car
going too slow in the left lane during a busy rush hour can back up traffic for
a mile.
Texting and driving has been an issue for years but the
addition of emailing and driving thanks to smartphones has taken distracted
driving to a whole new level. The vast majority of people that cause problems
on my daily commute are adults, not teens. They are my age or older and clearly
trying to get work done. The work cannot be that important. If it is, pull off
the road.
For many years, drunk driving carried little punishment.
Once the issue became a public safety issue, the punishments were made stiffer,
jail time started to be doled out and the rate of drunk driving deaths has
been cut in half over the past 25 years.
Why don’t we treat texting and driving the same way? Aren’t
those 9 lives lost per day worth it?
My proposal is simple: if you’re caught texting and driving,
you spend the night in jail. We have lumped all cell phone usage together while
driving and that’s not right. Quickly glancing to see who is calling you, as a
driver can safely look away from the road for 2 seconds, or answering a call
with eyes on the road is different than staring down at a screen as you type a
message.
If you got
a ticket for distracted driving, you would be ticked off, but it would not
deter you from doing it again.
If you spent a night in jail for distracted driving, you
would be ticked off and you would never, ever, ever text and drive again.
For most crimes, jail time is not an effective deterrent. This
is an exception. There’s no reason why people should needlessly die when we can
eradicate the problem.
A night in jail for texting? LOL
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