How to Stop Text Messaging While Driving

Road Safety for Parents, Teens, Adults Means a Ban on Texting

Sep 28, 2009 Ellen Freudenheim

It's dangerous to text message while driving a car. But while 90% of Americans support a ban, they do it anyway. Here's how to break texting habit and avoid car crashes

Polls show that the vast majority Americans agree that texting while driving is so dangerous that there ought to be a federal law against it. Ford Motor Company has come out with a statement endorsing such a ban. And indeed, many states have already banned texting while driving.

Still, millions of wired Americans who know better (and who'd support a ban ) just can't resist either reading, or sending text messages, from behind their own car wheel.

But, it's dangerous. Text messaging is a distraction from the serious business of driving, with potentially fatal consequences.

Here are ways to try to break the habit of texting while driving, in the interests of road safety. And, parents, siblings or spouses of young men who text and drive might do their loved ones a favor by becoming a first class nag in urging them not to text while driving; young men are at particularly high risk.

How to Stop Texting While Driving-Before Getting in the Car

1. Do a reality check: Watch this graphic video created by Peter Watkins-Hughes in South Wales, in the UK to discourage teenagers from texting while driving.
2. Plan ahead--if using text messaging to find an address, confirm a meeting place or time, or remind the babysitter to bring Johnny's shin guards to soccer, try to get these tasks done before starting to drive.
3. Before departing, send a text message to anyone who's likely to send an incoming text message, asking them to refrain until a certain time.
4. Don't think about driving time as time to accomplish all those loose ends that didn't get done at the office or at home. It's important to focus on just driving.
5. Consider turning the telephone off while driving.

How to Stop Texting While Driving Alone

1. Put the cell phone out of reach, in the back seat. Or, turn it off.
2. Pull over. If it's essential to read an incoming message, or send one, then resist the urge for instant gratification, and wait until it's safe to pull over, do the texting--and then turn the cell phone off or throw it into the back seat, out of reach.
3. Don't try to "save" the text messaging for a red light. Driving and text messaging aren't compatable activities, so it's better not to start down that slippery slope.
4. Instant technology creates its own sense of urgency but at the end of the day, most text messages probably can wait.

How to Stop Texting While Driving with Passengers

1. If someone else is in the car, ask them to use their own phone to obtain necessary information.
2. Ask the passenger to as act as "switchboard operator" and read the driver's incoming text messages aloud, and if necessary reply
3. Ask the passenger to help break the texting-while-driving habit by cautioning against it.

Habits can change. Over 13,000 lives were saved by use of seat belts in 2008, and, according to the NHTSA, over eighty percent of drivers used seat belts. Drunk driving remains a challenge. Alcohol-impaired-driving crashes have decreased somewhat, from 12,546 in 1998 to 11,774 in 2008, but experts believe more progress can be made in this arena.

Texting is fun, and it can be addictive, too. But with lives on the line, it's important to have safe driving habits. Put in perspective, not that many text messages are really worth the risk of having a potentially fatal car accident. In the interests of safety, parents, young drivers and others should consider the implications of text messaging on a cell phone while driving.

A ban on texting while driving, punishable by fines, may become the law of the land. Meanwhile, if drivers can muster the self discipline to ban it from their own driving repertiore (and if the parents of teens, especially, can demand there be no texting while driving) then everyone's safety will be enhanced.

Sources:

The National Occupant Protection Use Survey NOPUS)

Poll Finds Support for Ban on Texting at the Wheel, By M Connelly, NY Times, Sept, 27, 2009

The copyright of the article How to Stop Text Messaging While Driving in Health Field is owned by Ellen Freudenheim. Permission to republish How to Stop Text Messaging While Driving in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.

Don't Drive and Text or Use Cell Phones.

Teen Drivers' Text Habit is a Risk.

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Sep 29, 2009 11:43 AM

Guest :

i recently came across a blog post in consumer reports about a new free mobile phone application to help combat distracted driving called DriveSafe.ly that reads your texts and emails to you while you are driving.

It looked pretty interesting so I tried it. I have a BlackBerry and it has really helped me when I’m on the road because it keeps me from texting while driving. It works through my Bluetooth and it can actually send an auto-response to the sender. I’ve had some fun with customizing the auto-response messages. I’m not that technical but it’s easy to use. I recommend people checking out www.DriveSafe.ly

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