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Texting While Driving Laws

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TEXTING WHILE DRIVING LAWS
Jessica Daniels
DeVry University

TEXTING WHILE DRIVING LAWS SECTIONS III, IV, AND V Imagine a person driving in a car down the road and all of the sudden the car coming the other direction swerves and hits a person head on. The victim of the crash probably thinks the other driver was intoxicated in some way, but that person was texting while driving. This shows that sometimes people drive as badly when they are texting while driving as when they’re intoxicated. I had a personal experience of this kind. The author of this article had a friend who was driving down a country road texting while driving. He swerved left of center and hit a box truck head on and died instantly. Everyone in high school at the time knew him so it was quite devastating to the entire student body. There were grief counselors on site for a couple weeks after he passed away. This incident shows how a simple act can instantly affect everyone so quickly. There are more and more texting while driving injuries and deaths happening every day. A lot of these injuries and deaths are in states with lenient texting while driving laws. If communities in the states with these lenient laws helped raise awareness, people may think twice before texting while driving and also raising awareness could possibly lead to the chance to change some laws. Some people believe texting while driving laws make people have to hide their texting behind the wheel, thus making it more dangerous (Masnick, 2012). Regardless of opinions, studies show that there is a significant difference in the number of violations between states with lenient laws and states with strict laws (Masnick, 2012). Texting while driving laws are not strict enough in certain states, making citizens of those states not take texting while driving laws serious, which could possibly cause more accidents and even death.

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