Don’t text and drive…period! You would think as grown adults, we’d know better than to text and drive, but yearly statistics prove otherwise. In fact, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), texting and driving causes 1.3 million crashes each year.
Texting and driving, however, isn’t the only bad habit drivers have. As part of their “It Can Wait” campaign, AT&T recently found that 70% of all smartphone users use their phones while driving to: check in or post to social media, do a web search, and/or perform a video chat. All examples of things that could wait.
What is most alarming about these activities is that they all require visual, manual, and cognitive attention from the driver. Visual, manual, and cognitive attention that is better spent on the task at hand: driving. In the amount of time it takes you to check or send a text, a car can travel a distance greater than a football field, leaving you with little room/time to stop.
Working to save lives. The SMARTWheel – twenty-year old T.J. Evart’s invention – is designed to prevent drivers from texting and driving by detecting whether or not the driver has both hands on the wheel. If you opt to go hands-free, even for a second, the SMARTWheel will sound an alert.
The SMARTWheel can also communicate with an app. Let’s say, you allow your teenage driver to borrow the car, and she/he doesn’t keep both hands on the wheel the invention will alert you. Drivers are more likely to keep both hands on the wheel if they know that they’re being monitored.
Here is a definitive, no holds barred, list of ten reasons to NOT use your phone while driving; period:
- You could KILL yourself.
- You could kill your loved ones.
- You could kill other innocent people.
- Texting while driving is illegal in 46 states.
- 14 states prohibit all drivers from using hand-held cell phones while driving.
- You could run over a dog or cat.
- You could hit a curb and flip your vehicle.
- You could run into inanimate objects.
- You could teach your children it’s okay to break the law, and endanger lives.
- Your auto insurance rates can skyrocket.
