Brooke Barber texts while driving.
“Why call when you can text?” she said. “Plus, if you’re on the phone, you can’t listen to music.”
But most Americans don’t share her view.
Ninety-seven percent of Americans support a ban on texting while driving, according to a recent New York Times/CBS News poll.
Texting while driving distracts the driver because concentration is on the conversation, and he or she can’t react quickly enough, UF Police Department Capt. Jeff Holcomb said.
Eighty percent also support a ban on talking on the phone while driving, according to the poll.
Holcolmb feels texting is more dangerous than talking on the phone, though he feels both are unsafe. A law banning the two would make the roads safer, he said.
Linda Crider, a bicycling and traffic safety expert at UF, said she would also support a ban.
“You cannot depend on people to make good judgment as to what would be considered distracting them,” she said. “Most think driving…doesn’t require full concentration.”
Fifty percent of those polled said the punishment for texting and driving should be as severe as it is for drunken driving.
Holcomb said that though he doesn’t think the punishment for cell phone use should be as bad as driving under the influence, he does believe texting rivals it in level of danger.
“While intoxicated, the driver is at least trying to concentrate, whereas with texting, driver’s concentration is on the phone, [and] both hands are typically in use,” he said.
Crider compared the texting craze to the cultural addiction of smoking in the past.
“We knew as a culture smoking wasn’t good for us,” she said. “It was harmful to our health and safety, yet everyone did it, so we maintained it as part of our way of life. We know certain driving behaviors are unhealthy and unsafe, yet everyone does it so we keep on.”
Crider said her motherhood and job teaching college students has made her aware of the tendency to follow the pack, regardless of whether young people see their behavior as unsafe.
“Nothing-bad-will-happen-to-me syndrome prevails,” she said. “As parents and teachers, we pray a lot.”
