North Carolina has banned texting while driving, but have you?

We understand how tempting it is to reach for your phone when you hear a beep alerting you that a new text message or email has arrived. You'll just take a quick peek. You'll barely take your eyes off the road. And besides, you're a careful driver.

But a few seconds are all it takes to end your life or someone else's.

As the New York Times reports:

Studies suggest that drivers who send or receive a text message tend to take their eyes off the road for about five seconds, enough time for a vehicle going at highway speed to travel more than 100 yards. The Virginia Tech Transportation Institute found that truckers sending text messages are 23 times more likely to cause a crash or near-crash than a nontexting trucker.

Is any email or text message that important? Are you willing to risk your life or someone else's to read a message or send it?

The sad fact is that for millions of drivers every day, the answer is yes. When you're out driving today, take a look around. We bet you'll see someone fiddling with a cell phone when their eyes should be on the road.

Despite state laws banning the practice and the efforts of awareness campaigns, texting and other forms of distracted driving are an epidemic in this country. We've become addicted to technology and connectedness, and we're sacrificing our safety and others because of it.

How do we get the message across that texting while driving is unsafe? The statistics certainly back up that claim. The Huffington Post reports:

According to the Harvard Center of Risk Analysis, cell phone use contributes to 6 percent of all crashes, which equates to 636,000 crashes, 330,000 injuries, and 2600 deaths each year.

 

A British PSA aimed at teen drivers takes a more graphic approach:

This graphic British video is fiction, but this video from txtresponsibly vividly describes the aftermath of a fatal automobile accident in Utah, caused by a teen who was texting while driving.

It's true that inexperienced teen drivers are particularly at risk for being involved in texting while driving accidents. A Harris Interactive poll revealed that texting while driving is the number one driving distraction for teens. According to txtresponsibly, citing research from the Pew Research Center:

One in four (26%) of American teens of driving age say they have texted while driving, and half (48%) of all teens ages 12 to 17 say they’ve been a passenger while a driver has texted behind the wheel.

These findings form the centerpiece of a new report from the Pew Research Center’s Internet & American Life Project that looks at teens, mobile phones and distracted driving. The report is based on a telephone survey of 800 teens ages 12-17 and a parent or guardian as well as 9 focus groups with middle and high school students. 

But adult drivers are no better equipped to text and drive, even though 70 percent of adults admit to doing it, according to Harris Interactive. People who are texting or otherwise distracted while driving suffer from inattention blindness, according to researchers at the University of Utah, making them blind to other things on the road, including other cars, pedestrians and traffic signs and signals. Research indicates that driving while texting is as dangerous, is not more so, than driving while under the influence. It's comparable to driving with a blood alcohol at the the legal limit (0.08), according to the University of Utah researchers.

Other research, culled from Distraction.gov, the U.S. Department of Transportation's official Web site on distracted driving, indicates:

* Driving while using a cell phone reduces the amount of brain activity associated with driving by 37 percent. (Source: Carnegie Mellon)

* 80 percent of all crashes and 65 percent of near crashes involve some type of distraction. (Source: Virginia Tech 100-car study for NHTSA)

* Nearly 6,000 people died in 2008 in crashes involving a distracted or inattentive driver, and more than half a million were injured. (NHTSA)

* The worst offenders are the youngest and least-experienced drivers: men and women under 20 years of age. (NHTSA)

* Drivers who use hand-held devices are four times as likely to get into crashes serious enough to injure themselves. (Source: Insurance Institute for Highway Safety)
 

 If these examples and statistics aren't enough to make you stop texting while driving, tune in to the recent Oprah Winfrey show about distracted driving. You'll hear more heart-breaking stories about families who have lost children and other loved ones in fatal automobile crashes that were caused by texting drivers. You'll also see compelling demos and reenactments of what happens to our brains and our ability to respond when we're texting or chatting on the phone in the car.

In fact, Oprah believes that should stop talking on the phone while driving as well as texting while driving. Even if you're talking hands-free on a speaker phone or with a headset, you're not paying as much attention to the road as you should be.

Are you ready to stop texting while driving?

Then take the txtresponsibly oath that you will refrain from sending or checking emails or texts while driving. If you're ready to turn your car into a no-phone zone, meaning you'll not only refrain from texting or email but that you also won't talk on the phone while behind the wheel, sign Oprah's No Phone Zone pledge.