Why must you constantly check your phone while driving? How much more important is your life than the lives of people in the cars around you? Why do you deserve the right to take your eyes off the road while others have to suddenly adjust their ways around you? You see campaigns against texting and driving all the time. Why do you still do it? Why do you put others’ lives at risk?

In today’s fast paced and high technology lifestyle, people seem to always have to know everything that happens to everyone. Not only this, but they also feel the need to let other people know everything that’s going on in their lives through the use of social media or texting. The main concern isn’t really the abundant use of technology, for at this point in time, it’s practically inevitable that people become attached to their devices. The main problem is the time people choose to address this want. And that time is any time, whether it may be while eating, using the bathroom, or most insanely, while driving.

Road safety will always be a concern for many drivers and passengers because many things could happen at any time. However, more and more people seem to do less and less to alleviate this issue. More people participate in the practice of distracted driving, making texting and driving one of the most widespread problems that America faces everyday. People are constantly focused on their phones: checking Facebook, Twitter, Snapchat, or text messages. Using a cell phone while driving is not only dangerous to the person behind the wheel, but also to everyone on the road as well. In 2013, 3,154 people were killed in crashes caused by distracted driving, according to NHTSA's findings. Based on the data that on average, 30,000 lives lost to roadway crashes every year in America, that means distracted driving is the primary reason of over 10% of those fatalities.  Everyday, an average number of eleven teens die as a result of texting and driving. The National Safety Council also reports that cell phone use while driving leads to 1.6 million crashes each year and nearly 330,000 injuries occur each year from accidents caused by texting while driving. The numbers are quite staggering and should speak for themselves. Out of the many problems resulting in death that America endures today, texting and driving should not be one of them, simply because people should be able to avoid and prevent it pretty easily. But because of people's excessive attachment to their devices, saying “easily” is quite a stretch. According to a AAA poll, 94% of teen drivers acknowledge the dangers of texting and driving, but 35% admitted to doing it anyway. This goes to say that drivers, especially teen drivers, are educated and knowledgeable of road safety (probably due to their exposure to media campaigns and advertisements against texting and driving), but what they lack is common sense and consideration while driving. They lack the practical judgment that they are not superior to others while driving and they lack concern for others’ safety and well-being as a result of their actions.

“Where u at” – These were the last words that Mariah West, a high school senior who was a day away from graduation, read in this world. As she took her eyes off the road to look down at her phone and read the new text message, she lost control of her car. The car slid, hit a bridge, and she died on impact. One of the officers, Officer Grant Hendrix of the Missouri State Highway Patrol described the gruesome scene and said, “When I got to the scene, her face was disfigured from sliding down the roadway… Lying in the roadway in a large pool of blood I noticed her shoes and I thought this is a young girl… It was just a really horrific scene all because of a senseless text message” (Copeland, USA TODAY).

Is one text message, one Facebook status update, one new Tweet or Snapchat really worth all this? Worth a life? Worth your life? Mariah West, being one day away from graduating, held great potential, had great plans and aspirations for her life but lost everything in a flash because she took her eyes off the road for a few seconds. Many people may think that taking their eyes off the road for four to five seconds is enough time to check their phone and then get back to driving, but the reality is that it’s not. Traveling at 55 mph, that's enough time to travel the length of a football field. That’s also enough time to kill you as a driver, your passengers, and/or drivers and passengers around you.

Despite the fatalities and obvious dangers of texting and driving, many people still try to reason and justify themselves for choosing to text and drive. According to Dr. David Greenfield, founder of The Center for Internet and Technology Addiction and Assistant Clinical Professor of Psychiatry at The University of Connecticut, and Earl K. Miller, Ph.D., Picower Professor of Neuroscience at MIT people believe they can multitask while driving and “they don’t multitask more because they are better at it. They multitask more because they are sensation-seeking and impulsive. They rationalize their behavior with an inflated confidence in their multitasking abilities” (Miller). Furthermore, “the impulse to continue dangerous behavior is strong. [People] compulsively check [their] phones because of a neurochemical in the brain that makes [them] feel happy” (Greenfield). People need to know that they are not capable of doing everything at any time, especially when the time is while driving. It is extremely difficult, or even impossible to text and drive at the same time, and drivers should know better than to test this concept. Drivers should always only focus on the task at hand and be more considerate of the people around them, whether it may be their passengers or the people in other cars around them. People’s happiness shouldn’t be defined by knowing what pops up on their cell phone screen because as the numbers and story previously described, if this poor behavior continues, people’s lives aren’t going to end up so happy.

Texting and driving is one of the fastest-growing problems to sweep the nation. Due to the development of text messaging, in addition to more technologically advanced cell phones, the number of people to engage in this fatal practice is only rapidly increasing. These aren’t the only numbers rising for the number of injuries and deaths as a result of texting and driving also escalate every year. People need to realize that their behavior on the road affect not only themselves, but the people around them. They must be responsible for their actions especially when their lives and others are on the line. Don’t text and drive. That new text isn’t worth your it.