Personal Injury Law

Overstating the Texting While Driving Case

According to one study, driving distracted kills 5,500 people in car and truck accidents every year in this country. Don't let the title of this blog fool you. It is beyond dispute that texting while driving is a growing part of this problem. The Baltimore Sun reports that 25% of teenaged drivers admit to texting while driving a car, and almost half say they've been in cars with someone who sent text messages. But kids are not the only problem. Adults that rolled their eyes at texting just a few years ago are now textaholics who read and write text messages while driving. The phenomenon is causing serious injuries and deaths on our nation's highway. And the perpetrators are not degenerate criminals but people just like you.

This all makes sense. The anti-texting advocates have me. But this is where they lose me: "Texting and driving is worse than drinking and driving."

First, the statement is ridiculously misleading. Maybe, if some studies are true, you can better avoid an accident with a .08 blood level than you can in the middle of a text message. But you are drunk the whole time you are driving, not for an instant of receiving or sending a text message. So I'd rather be on the other side of a double yellow line of someone who sent a few texts than someone who is drunk any day.

But my larger criticism is the message the "worse than drunk driving" slogan sends. It is like we can't say Heidi Klum is pretty without saying she is more attractive than Gisele Bundchen or complementing LeBron James without pointing out what he can do that Michael Jordan couldn't.

Full post as published by Maryland Injury Lawyer Blog on October 07, 2010 (boomark / email).