To Text or to Drive; That is the Question

I text a lot.  I text more than most people do, I am sure.  Well, maybe not.  I do not text during the day, at least Monday through Friday, as I am at work.  But I do text a lot in the evenings and on the weekends.  (OK, I cannot say that I do not text at work sometimes.   There have been the occasional text messages that come in that I have to reply to.  But those are only for emergencies only.)  I rack up about 5,000 to 10,000 text messages sent and received a month.  That number was higher when I was a server, of course, as I was only working a couple days a week.

The majority of my text messaging comes from Twitter these days.  I send more text messages to social media sites than I do people it seems.  Not to mention the number of people that I receive text message alerts from when he or she Tweets.  Yeah, maybe Twitter can start paying my outrageous cell phone bill.  (I have unlimited text messages, don’t worry.)

I have actually written several posts about texting.  I wrote one a while back that discussed a girl that had run up an insane bill (she was very young, under eighteen for sure) and how her parents reacted to it.  I also wrote a post, quite recently actually, about a girl that fell into a manhole in New York City while she was walking and texting.

But the reason that I am here today is to discuss the art of texting and driving.  New York, of all places, is saying that they have proof that texting while you are behind the wheel is dangerous.  They stated in a recently research study that you are 23 times more at risk of getting into an accident if you are texting while you are driving.  That number, to me, is actually quite low.  I cannot believe that it only goes up 23%.

But the state of New York is also trying to push for this to against the law.  They are saying that if the state begins to enforce this as being something not to take lightly, that in turn they would see a decrease in not only crashes, but deaths as well.  (Of course if you believe that you die when you die, like most of us do, then no matter what the law is it will not matter when we go.)  They also say that this is something that can easily be monitored and tracked.  Huh?  Really?  I want to know how.

How in the world are you going to tell me that you can tell when I am texting and driving?  Outside of the fact that nearly every teenager that has a cell phone can text without even looking at his or her phone, and the fact that I can type faster than most of you out there reading this right now, you mean to tell me you can track my texting while I am driving?  I want to see it.  Prove it.  Pull me over.  Now, granted, I believe that you could see me if you were sitting in the car beside me, but that is about it.  What if I am looking at my GPS driving to get to my next destination?  Or what if I am checking the weather reports because there is a tornado warning and I am scared for my family at home?  Or are those going to be illegal as well?

The more and more people that get cell phones, and the more and more people that text their fingers away, the more you are going to see this becoming an issue.  There is no way to stop it, and I will be surprised to see any state make this an official law.  Of course, there already may be states that have made this a law, but I will not listen.  I am going to text when I want whether I am driving or not.  I have not wrecked (knock on wood) nor even been close (still knocking) since the day I turned sixteen and began my text message career.  I am just as safe driving while texting as the guys that leave the bar every night at 3 A.M. who have had one too many are.  How about the police focus their efforts on something a little more meaningful, huh?