Please Dnt Txt n Drv
In an effort to reduce traffic fatalities and serious accidents, all Michigan motorists must voluntarily take more responsibility and never text while driving.
While Michigan in 2010 enacted legislation prohibiting texting while driving, the law is not yet widely enforced across the state. Because law enforcement is challenging, I urge voluntary compliance by all motorists in Michigan.
Too many people have been killed or maimed for life due to thoughtless drivers who feel compelled to text while driving. Michigan took the right step by banning texting while driving, but it is challenging for police officers to spot violations, so I urge all motorists to simply stop engaging in this deadly practice.
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration reports that 20 percent of all injury crashes in 2009 involved distracted driving and in 2009 some 5,474 people were killed and 448,000 injured in crashes that involved distracted driving. Other studies show that:
* Motorists who text while driving are 23 times more likely to be involved in an accident than those who do not.
* Texting while driving is more dangerous than driving while intoxicated. A motorist texting while driving at 35 mph will travel 25 feet before coming to a complete stop compared to four feet a drunk driver would cover at the same speed.
* A 2010 Pew Research study shows that 47 percent of adult drivers admitted to texting while driving compared to 34 percent of teens.
These findings and others convinced Oprah Winfrey to run a national campaign in 2010 to persuade Americans to sign a No-Zone pledge not to use phones or texting while driving. In response, more than 200,000 people signed the pledge, including more than 60 celebrities such as Sandra Bullock, Elton John, Jerry Seinfeld, Morgan Freeman, Tina Fey and others.
US Secretary of Transportation Ray LaHood, a strong advocate for measures to reduce accidents caused by distracted drivers, met with CEOs of Ford and Chrysler on January 25, 2011 to discuss the technology. automotive safety related to distractions while driving.
In January 2011, T-Mobile added the DriveSmart phone app as a test to one of its phones that detects when the phone owner is in a moving car and then forwards all phone calls and text messages to voicemail, eliminating the need to answer. the phone while driving to read or return a text message. Calls to 911 would not be blocked. T-Mobile plans to offer the app on several other devices.
I am pleased that leaders in communication technology have joined Oprah Winfrey and Ray LaHood in raising national awareness of the dangers of texting while driving in an effort to reduce the tragic consequences of this silly habit.
Unfortunately, despite the practice being illegal in Michigan and several other states, the practice of texting while driving continues to cause unnecessary deaths and disabling injuries.
One of the reasons I make this appeal is because of my personal experience in dealing with families and survivors of people killed by distracted drivers. In the recent past, I have also campaigned for the Michigan Department of Transportation to adopt an aggressive program to widen two-lane highways in all areas to make high-speed travel safer for everyone, as well as their campaign to lower the mandatory retirement age for truck drivers. Sixty-five.