Our safety message to citizens regarding the dangers of texting while driving — “Arrive Alive — Don’t Text and Drive.”
We at Erskine & McMahon LLP have become increasingly aware of what we consider an extremely dangerous trend — talking on cell phones while driving. Each year, we handle hundreds of car wreck cases and in an ever growing number, cell phones play a dangerous part. Our experience is confirmed by scientific studies (see article below). In order to share our concern with the public, Erskine & McMahon has embarked upon a public safety campaign by placing safety warnings on the back window of City of Longview public transit buses.
We are dedicated to further educating the public and our clients about safety while driving. If you have a story to share about the dangers of cell phone use while driving, please share with us.
Erskine & McMahon expands its Arrive Alive campaign. Watch the video below for the Arrive Alive campaign currently running on East Texas Channel 7 KLTV.
UPDATE—AT&T has hopped on the bandwagon with its
"Txting and Drivng ... It Can Wait" campaign. Acknowledging that “texting and driving is dangerous”, AT&T circulated an email stating:
Considering the ease and immediacy texting allows for communicating, it's not surprising that doing so has increased in popularity drastically over the last few years. In fact, according to CTIA the Wireless Association, texting has increased tenfold over the last three years - and some of those texts are being sent from drivers.
The dangerous habit AT&T is trying to break with the Txting and Drivng ... It Can Wait campaign has been thought to be most common among teen drivers. However, recent reports show that adults are just as likely to text and drive.
In a poll conducted by Pew Research Center's Internet & American Life Project, 47% of adults said they'd read or sent text messages while driving (last year, 34% of teens said they did the same).
While the recent findings prove it's not just teens who can be careless behind the wheel, it's no consolation. The fact remains: texting and driving is dangerous.
Look at the last text message you received. Was it important enough to risk your life (or someone else's) to read? The split second it takes to read a short response can be enough to avoid an accident, a pedestrian, an animal or a changing light. The Txting and Drivng campaign is striving to make drivers and wireless users more aware of this, and is offering a quiz to test your texting and driving IQ. Answer just a few questions to see if you're a safe driver.
Even only occasionally reading or sending text messages (such as just when stopped at red lights or stuck in slow-to-non moving traffic) makes a driver 23 times more likely to be involved in a crash, according to a recent study by the Virginia Tech Transportation Institute.
If something is urgent or extremely important, drivers are urged to safely pull over and stop driving before texting - or calling, for that matter.
On board with waiting to text while driving? Then take the AT&T pledge on Facebook. Upon taking the pledge, users will be given the option to share the pledge on their wall, which will help encourage friends to pledge to avoid texting and driving, as well. There's also a Txtng & Drivng badge that can be added to blogs and Web sites as well as a link to a toolkit full of resources like safety tips and posters.
Drivers on Cell Phones Are As Impaired As Drunks
A 2006 study by a University of Utah psychologist proves that motorists who talk on cell phones are as impaired as drunk drivers. The scientists found that people are as impaired when they drive and talk on a cell phone as they are when they drive intoxicated at the legal blood alcohol limit of 0.08%.
The 2006 study found that, compared with undistracted drivers, motorists who talk on cell phones drove slightly slower, were slower to hit the brakes, displayed more variation in following distance as their attention switched between driving and conversing, were slow to resume normal speed after braking, and were more likely to crash. The team of scientists concluded “impairments associated with using a cell phone while driving can be as profound as those associated with driving while drunk.”
Earlier research by the same psychologists have shown that hands-free cell phones are just as distracting as hand-held cell phones because the conversation itself – not just manipulation of a hand-held phone – distracts drivers from road conditions.
One statistical analysis of all the studies showed cell phone users were at least five times more likely to be involved in a wreck than were undistracted drivers. More than 100 million of US motorists use cell phones while driving, meaning that at any given moment during daylight hours, 8% of all drivers are talking on a cell phone. The main reason there are not more wrecks is that “92% of drivers are not on a cell phone and are compensating for drivers on cell phones,” notes the study’s author.
Our safety message to citizens regarding the dangers of texting while driving — “Arrive Alive — Don’t Text and Drive.”