Texting to an Accident
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At 4:21 p.m. on September, 12, 2008, a train driver in a suburb of Los Angeles received a text message. Although no records exist of his actions, we can assume that he started by opening the message. He then peered at the tiny digital words illuminated on the screen. After that he had to think of a response. After that he had to manipulate the miniscule buttons on his phone to type in the response. We know for a fact that this whole ordeal took a little over a minute because, at 4:22, the train driver sent the text message. That left him about thirty seconds to put away the phone, return his eyes to the tracks, and notice the oncoming freight train that would kill 25 people, injure 135 more, and, most likely, destroy his cell phone.
We all know that texting while driving is dangerous – it requires us to take our eyes off the road and our mind off our driving, and even though it doesn’t take long, it takes long enough. The story about the train driver in California isn’t unique. A bus driver in San Antonio rear-ended another vehicle after texting. A woman in Britain sent twenty text messages in the minutes before colliding with another vehicle at 70 m.p.h. and killing the driver. These fatalities have become so common that many states, including Minnesota, Washington, and New Jersey, have passed legislation that makes it illegal to text while driving.
That elevates texting from the rank of ‘things one probably shouldn’t do behind the wheel’, which includes eating a sandwich, and places it in the hallowed halls of ‘things one really shouldn’t do behind the wheel,’ right next to drinking, smoking marijuana, and changing one’s pants. That begs the question: is this all an over-reaction? In short, no. Recently, the New York Times claimed that texting while driving increases the risk of traffic accidents by a factor a 23. A study from Virginia Tech presents less shocking numbers, but worrisome ones nonetheless. This study found that the risk of accidents is 2.8 times higher for drivers who are texting than for those who are wholly focused on the road. Considering that other studies have found drunk driving to be equally dangerous as talking on the cell phone, and that talking on the cell phone only increases the risk by 1.3 times, that means that texting while driving is more than twice as dangerous as driving under the influence.
The lesson to be learned: do not text while driving. It may only take a minute, but that’s a minute you don’t have to give.