There Are No Good Reasons For Texting While Driving
Distracted driving victim confronts teens who admit to texting and driving
Distracted driving isn’t just a teen issue; all ages are guilty of it. It’s rare these days to take a drive without being stuck behind someone at a stoplight who’s too distracted to look up and see that the light has changed. But that is a stopped car. Imagine what happens when someone is distracted while driving.
Jacy Good doesn’t have to imagine it — she lived through a crash with a distracted driver. She knows how texting or talking on the phone and driving impacts real lives. In a video that is now going viral, she confronts teens who admit to regularly driving distracted. Their interaction is incredibly moving.
In 2008, Good had just graduated from college and was being driven home by her parents when her family’s station wagon was struck head-on by a tractor trailer. The tractor trailer swerved to avoid hitting a minivan that failed to stop at a red light. The minivan driver was talking on his phone.
Her parents, Jay and Jean Good, died at the scene. Jacy survived a list of critical injuries, including a shattered pelvis and traumatic brain injury. She endured months of physical therapy learning how to walk and talk again.
Seemingly for the first time, the teens in this video realize that there are actual human lives being impacted by a decision they make so flippantly. And it’s not just teens. Adults are guilty of distracted driving, too — and it has to stop. Here are some sobering statistics:
11 teens die every day as a result of texting and driving.
Answering a text takes away your attention for about five seconds. Traveling at 55 mph, that’s enough time to travel the length of a football field.
1 out of every 4 car accidents in the United States is caused by texting and driving.
In 2013, 3,154 people were killed in distraction-related crashes.
This is totally preventable.
We need to put down our phones and teach our teens just how dangerous using a phone — in any capacity — in a driver’s seat is.
