Texting While Driving - Essay Example

The reality is that every day thousands of text messages and emails are sent and read from behind the wheel by America drivers, and indeed drivers all over the world. Driving while texting has been claimed to cause accidents for the following reasons; it reduces concentration and prevents the driver from focusing on the road and the cars ahead beside or behind him/her. This is because texting takes up a good deal of sensory, motor faculties which are required for drivers to put their full focus on the road.

As a result, they are likely to veer off the road and/or cause accidents resulting in fatalities for the driver passenger’s pedestrians and other road users. Despite this, others claim that texting while driving is fine and no more dangerous than eating or talking to the passenger next to the driver in the car. In fact, by virtue of driving itself being dangerous, we have speed and age limits; therefore, it transpires then that if one is qualified to drive he/she should also be qualified to text while driving.

However, if the argument is followed to its logical conclusions it will imply actions be banned based on the rate of death. In such a situation texting and driving would not be the only thing banned, even driving itself would be outlawed given its high death toll even in the absence of distractions. Bearing in mind that texting has become almost second nature to most people, it begs the question whether people should be encouraged to avoid driving and texting or trained on how to do both. Quizzed on the effects of this, proponents of this debate assert that they did not find texting while driving to be a significant risk; some are of the opinion that texting is no more different from using GPRS to check for directions (Stephens).

The American federal and state laws have tried to limit mobile phone activity while driving, and this has included banns or limitations from calling or texting while driving. However, it is notable that the matter is not unequivocally agreed on since not every state has banns on texting or calling while driving. Thirty nine states have banned texting and driving while five have outlawed the same for novice drivers; school bus drivers in 19 states are not allowed to make phone calls, only in three states are they forbidden to text while driving; Mississippi, Oklahoma and Texas (“Cellphone and texting laws”).

In year 2010, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration realized that the number of Americans texting or otherwise manipulating cellphones and driving had risen to 0.9 percent (“Driver Electronic Device Use in 2010”). Majority of those who text while driving, fall in the teenage and young driver bracket, and they are likely to do more than just text since with smart phones they can access Facebook and other social networking sites which may be more involving than texting. Ultimately, despite the many opinions on the issue, the law seems bent on outlawing the practice since the opinion of the majority is apparently not in favor of allowing it.

This can be seen in that most states have outlawed it, and in most cases should a police officer find someone driving and texting in this states they may charge you with dangerous driving. One of the leading insurance firms in the country, nationwide insurance has also strongly supported the ban for Texting While Driving-TWD (“Nationwide Insurance…