Texting While Driving. Who Does That Anyways?

           Personally I feel that texting while driving is obnoxious.  I hate nothing more than to be stuck driving behind or next to some chick wearing huge sunglasses completely oblivious to the whole world because she is too busy looking down at her phone texting someone.  I don’t mean to sound prejudice in the sense that only women do such things, God knows when I had my phone I have been guilty of doing the same thing, sans huge sunglasses :)

            I find that people who are texting while behind the steering wheel tend to be somewhat selfish people in nature.  Why can I make such a harsh statement about someone that I don’t even know?  Well when you really stop to think about it, people who are busy on their phones instead of paying attention to the roads usually make errors.  Sometimes people might not go when the light turns green or make the inappropriate move at a four way stop sign; which is by far the most annoying.  When I honk my horn at their error, they have the nerve to look at me sideways!  It projects the impression that the driver has no regard for anyone else on the road especially when they are unwilling to admit their fault.  That kind of behavior seems pretty self-centered to me.  Besides are they so important that the call/text cannot wait another ten minutes until they get to their destination?  I understand some people have children or jobs with high communication needs, but that is why Bluetooth was invented and implemented as a law.  Too bad they haven’t made texting while driving against the law as well. 

            Beyond the previously stated reasons that I dislike texting while driving, it is far more dangerous than people think.  I know we have all read articles about people accidently hitting pedestrians, trees, and occasional fender benders, but the reality is that it is so unsafe to be distracted while operating a two ton piece of metal.  The more time you spend paying attention to your phone = the less time you spend paying attention to the road.  I read somewhere that texting while driving is about six times more likely to result in an accident than driving while intoxicated!  Can you believe that statistic?  That number alone should make MADD really mad. 

            One final complaint against texting in general:  It’s hard to tell what is actually being communicated via text.  In the past, I have gotten into some serious arguments all because the other party or I misunderstood the communication.  Maybe I’m alone on that one because I do have a way of getting myself into those kinds of “situations.”