Prof Frank

Running head: DISTRACTED DRIVING 1

DISTRACTED DRIVING 2

Yunsong zhang

COMS110

Distracted Driving

Thesis statement

The behavior of distracted driving in United States is no longer are legal practice any more, after the enactment of various legislative directive legalizing.

Introduction

The distracted driving is no longer a laughing matter anymore. A more firm legislation has been put to ensure this dangerous vice is put to an end. Texting and driving is a totally distracting element while driving, not only on the roads in United States, but in every part of the world. Majority of States in America have put in place tough laws to curb this kind of behavior up to date. This is for the reasons that, while driving texting regroups reading actions, composing and sending either the mail or text messages from the mobile phone while operating a vehicle. This directly causes a significant diversion of attention subsequently lowering the driver’s ability to stay focused on the road.

The risks of crashes or even near-crashes are highly increased by texting while driving since they eventually reduce driver’s awareness as well as performance. The risk is even higher for the truck drivers as research states that crash risks for truck drivers are 23 times higher (Zedner, 2012). This is truly an alarming and delicate issue that needs a lot of awareness in order to reduce the raising accidents resulting from this behavior. It is indeed a vice that many people would just ignore by the assumption that the effects were not as that high. The truth of the matter is that, according to a study by the University of Utah, it was revealed that texting behind the wheel increases the risk of an accident by six (Guerin, 2009). There are also efforts by the media to heighten this sensitization in the United States, for example there have been no phone zone campaigns by Oprah Winfrey, which are primarily aimed at encouraging views to shun this behavior.

The United States government has not been silent over this matter too, although only few actions have been made by the federal administration on this subject. The September of 2009 has the record for the concern that the department of Transport showed to this matter, where various safety experts, elected officials, industry representatives and members of public discussed on numerous ways of ending distractive driving (Iowa, 2010). By the end of that year, president Obama banned all federal employees from engaging in texting while driving government vehicles as well as texting in their own cars when using government issued cell phones or on official endeavors. In a still bolder move, January 2010, the United States Transport Secretary announced a kind of federal guidance that prohibited all commercial drivers like truck and bus drivers from using their phone for texting while driving. This directive came with a strict penalty of up to 2,750 dollars.

There are quite a number of people all over the United States, who have never been satisfied by the laws against phone texting while driving. As much as most people in the entire country agree it is a dangerous driving habit, few of them dispute that the solution to number of accidents is not actually banning wheel texting. There have been new safety findings, which categorically express that the ban is not the ultimate solution to accidents across the country. A new safety research goes even further to state that the prohibition on the contrary has increased the number of accidents (Iowa, 2010). This has obviously caused mixed reaction in the entire country. These research argues that texting behind the wheel is rather a petty issue just like adjusting the car stereo.

In conclusion, the prohibition of distracted driving in the United States came at a time when the road sanity had almost gone out of control. The United States government has been very instrumental in drafting ideal safety policies as far as texting and driving is concerned. Their directives have been timely and have equally saved many lives which could have been lost on America’s roads due to careless habit of texting behind the wheel. Studies from various researches have indeed confirmed the dangers associated with the behavior to be real (Baldauf, 2009). This is truly a behavior which should be highly discouraged not only in the United States but also in other countries all over the world. Thanks to the Legislative measures and actions against this matter, road safety can no longer be blamed on phones in the United States.

References

Iowa. (2010). Commercial motor vehicle drivers and CDL holders: Texting while driving prohibited. Ames, Iowa:

Guerin, L., & Society for Human Resource Management (U.S.). (2009). Smart policies for workplace technologies: Email, blogs, cell phones & more. Berkeley, CA: Nolo.

Baldauf, K., & Stair, R. M. (2011). Succeeding with technology: Computer system concepts for your life. Boston, Mass: Course Technology/Cengage Learning.< http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Society/2010/0928/Bans-on-texting-while-driving-don-t-reduce-crashes-study-says>

Zedner, L., & Roberts, J. V. (2012). Principles and values in criminal law and criminal justice: Essays in honour of Andrew Ashworth. Oxford, U.K: Oxford University Press

IRTAD Road Safety Annual Report 2009. (2010). S.l.: International Transport Forum.