State Laws are Cracking Down on Texting and Driving. Are You Prepared?
Summer road trip season means juggling full Spotify queues and podcasts to sustain long stretches of contemplation and boredom on the open highway. It also means getting countless messages asking about your whereabouts and safety. While these texts from your friends and loved ones may have the best of intentions, they induce a perilous distraction, increasing the likelihood of a fatal car crash by 23%.
Out of the countless distractions tempting you in your car during your road trip, why is texting most likely to put you in harm’s way? Simple. Texting engages the “triple-threat” of your attention span. First and foremost, it forces your eyes off the road, blurring oncoming traffic into your peripheral vision. Second, texting depends on manual input, be it typing out an entire message, or navigating to a voice command. Lastly, it hijacks your cognition. When your brain is busy thinking about word choice and punctuation, it’s almost impossible to keep your eyes on the road.
Beyond the safety risks, however, it’s crucial to note that texting and driving is illegal for all drivers in 47 states. Oregon recently banned touching your cellphone while driving, and Washington is expected to follow soon. With Alabama, Iowa, and Texas enforcing stricter regulations on texting and driving throughout this summer and Arizona soon to follow in 2018, the ban on handheld device use while operating a vehicle is quickly becoming a nation-wide reality. If you’re planning to cross state lines when you hit the road this summer, O6 will help you stay within mobile safety regulations regardless of where you land.