Keep Your Thumbs on the Steering Wheel!

Text messaging is a nationwide teen driving menace.

Eight out of 10 of all teen driving crashes are attributed to driver distraction, says the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. There’s no telling how many of those teen drivers specifically named texting as their distraction, but consider this.

Last year, 900 children, ages 15 to 19, were surveyed about teen driving. Nearly 75 percent of them admitted that cell phone texting was their biggest threat to safety while driving. Even with that knowledge, almost half of the group said that they still text and drive simultaneously.

It doesn’t take a mathematician to figure out, that adds up to big trouble. Teen drivers are aware of the dangers associated with texting-while-driving, but they are unwilling to stop.

Government Intervention

Someone wants to make teen drivers keep their hands on the wheel and off their keypads. It’s the government.

First there was President Barack Obama’s “beer summit,” just a friendly conversation between guys about race discrimination. Now his administration is proposing a “texting-while-driving summit.”

No question, in both cases everyone would agree something needs to be done, but no one is quite sure of the grand plan that will accomplish it.

Here’s what the government is thinking:

Fourteen states have passed some sort of texting while driving ban. But, considering the sobering teen driving statistics (Mile for mile, teen drivers are four times more likely to have an accident than older drivers), that’s not good enough. So the federal government wants to take matters into its own hands.

One possibility is that it will strongly encourage states to make it illegal to text or e-mail while operating a motor vehicle. The carrot at the end of the stick is federal highway funding. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood suggests the feds cut, by 25 percent, a state’s annual allotment of road funds if it doesn’t comply. Hello, national drunken driving ban, reinvented.

Parents recognize this little game of mind aerobics. We may have even tried something like it in our home, for teen driving. The authority figure responds to undesirable behaviors with the threat of withdrawing support. Parents also know that this tactic often works. (more…)