Fourteen year old Danny Oates, from Huntington Beach, CA is dead. Danny was killed on August 29 last year by a driver who prosecutors say may have been texting while driving.
A few months later, a similar incident happened in Boston when a 13-year old cyclist was struck and killed by a driver who was also reportedly texting while driving. The driver of the vehicle apparently didn't even know he had hit the kid until several hours later.
Then, just last month, a train collided with another in Chatsworth, CA. killing 25 people and injuring over 130. A contributing factor: the engineer of one of the trains, Robert Sanchez, was sending text messages just moments before the collision.
On a personal level, on at least one occasion, while out running in my neighborhood, I experienced the unnerving situation of watching a car, failing to negotiate a curve, drift right towards me. Though he...
...was going about 50 MPH, it seemed like slow motion. Thankfully the driver looked up in time from whatever the hell it was he was doing with his cell phone and swerved away before terribly inconveniencing me further.
It wouldn't be at all surprising to me if you were to claim that texting while driving poses a safety hazard. I'd say it's a flippin' understatement, in fact. But, did you know that, compared to impairment by alcohol or marijuana, texting is worse?
A recent research finding by the RAC foundation reports that texting while driving actually slows reaction times by 35%. Now compare that to alcohol impairement (12%) and marijuana (21%) and it tends to put things in new perspective. Also scary is that about half of kids surveyed said they text while driving.
So what's the deal here? I was trying to look at this from a learning perspective. I have my thoughts about where learning deficiencies may manifest in some folks. I'll noodle on it a bit more and post my follow up thoughts in another article.
In the meantime, if you have any theories, please share.
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