Driving Danger

Whenever I’m on the road, I almost always see someone in another car texting and driving. By now, we should all know that this is a horribly stupid thing to do. The inbuilt risk that goes along with taking your eyes off the road frequently as you type away is apparent. We have far too many news stories regarding accidents where people lose their lives because they happen to be on the phone. It's extremely upsetting how we know texting while driving is stupid, and yet, still continue to do it.

Regardless of the rules, it seems that we humans believe we’re invincible. We think that accidents cannot happen to us because we have mastered the ability to multitask, the ability to text and drive at the same time. We think that we have memorized the keypad and won’t have to look down, and that a quick response would be ok.

But it’s not ok. Because in that split second when the send button is hit, anything can happen.
This brings me to a story concerning the New Jersey appellate court stating that if someone texts a person they know is driving at the time, and causes that driver to crash, then the court may hold the sender liable for distraction and for the accident.

Kyle Best, 18 years old, was driving his truck down a rural highway, when his girlfriend, Shannon Colonna, 17 years old, sent him a text. Due to his distraction, Best drifted across the double center line and hit, head-on, David Kubert and his wife who were on a motorcycle.

Although the Kuberts survived, they lost both of their legs, and not only filed a lawsuit against Best but also Colonna for sending the texts. The Kuberts believed that Best was being distracted by Shannon, and so Shannon should also be held liable. As a result, the couple won the suit against Best but lost against Colonna. The judges let Colonna go since she was oblivious to the fact that Best was driving. This was proved through court documents, which showed that the two had sent each other 62 texts that day, suggesting that it was a continuing conversation.

This brings me to the question: should a person be held responsible for sending a driver a text message?
Many have argued that the person sending the text is electronically in the car with the driver, like a distracting passenger. However, it is difficult, if the driver didn’t say, to know when a person is driving when you text him/her.

And even if you did know, isn’t it the driver who is ultimately responsible? The person sending the text should not be held liable since it is the driver who makes the decision to glance at his/her phone, pick it up, and reply.

Moreover, even a passenger can sidetrack a driver by talking. So is it right to arrest the passenger for talking too? The answer is: of course not. As a matter of fact, you, as a driver, have an obligation, a huge responsibility, to keep your eyes on the road.

To be honest, it is very tempting to answer the phone when we hear a message ring, especially with the way we're wired these days. But texting while driving is a serious problem: it could risk your life and anyone else’s. It appears that by making the person that is texting the driver liable, in a way, lessens the accountabilities of the driver.

Nowadays, New Jersey and many other states are still generating standards concerning texting and driving. Whether these standards will take flight in the future remains uncertain. But even then, by the end of the day, we cannot help but question: is it not the accountability of the drivers to disregard incoming text messages while driving? After all, they are the ones behind the wheel, and thus, ultimately responsible to keep their eyes on the road.