Look at the facts

An article on Common Sense Media states the facts about using phones and driving in the United States.
According to a federal study:

11% percent of drivers are talking on their phones at any given time

According to a Harvard study:

2,600 traffic deaths are caused each year by drivers using cell phones and that 570,000 accidents leading to minor and serious injuries are caused each year by cell phone distractions.

I agree with all of the statistics above; These show that texting while driving is a serious problem and should be eliminated. It is causing lots of crashes that could be prevented. Distracted drivers should NOT be the reason that someone innocent dies.  I know that the above quotes are credible because I have found 3 other articles that agree with what is said by Common Sense Media.
Another  useful statistics website is Edgar Snyder & Associates .
This website says that

•Talking on a cell phone while driving can make a young driver's reaction time as slow as that of a 70-year-old.

•Talking on a cell phone causes nearly 25% of car accidents.

•People who text while driving are 23% more likely to be in a car accident.

Also, an article on Opposing Viewpoints gives the same statistics as the above stated.

The new study, which entailed outfitting the cabs of long-haul trucks with video cameras over 18 months, found that when the drivers texted, their collision risk was 23 times greater than when not texting.

This fact is the same as the one stated on the Edgar Snyder & Associates website.

About half of drivers 16 to 24 said they had texted while driving

(Matt Richtel. "Texting Increases the Risk of Having a Crash in Both Trucks and Cars." Opposing Viewpoints Online Collection. San Diego: Greenhaven Press, 2010).

Finally, in another article in Opposing Viewpoints, it says

An estimated 20 percent of drivers are sending or receiving text messages while behind the wheel
(Bret Schulte. "States Should Try to Curb Teen Texting and Driving." Opposing Viewpoints Online Collection. San Diego: Greenhaven Press, 2010).

In conclusion, statistics show that texting while driving is dangerous and should be completely eliminated.

Harmless or Dangerous?

In an article by  Michael Austin in a Car and Driver magazine, they tested the reaction rate of two men who were texting while driving.  The two men were tested on their reaction times for driving while reading and writing and text, and driving while intoxicated past the legal limit.


The first tested was a intern named Jordan Brown, 22.  These are his reaction rates:

Intern Brown’s baseline reaction time at 35 mph of 0.45 second worsened to 0.57 while reading a text, improved to 0.52 while writing a text, and returned almost to the baseline while impaired by alcohol, at 0.46. At 70 mph, his baseline reaction was 0.39 second, while the reading (0.50), texting (0.48), and drinking (0.50) numbers were similar. 

The second tested was a 37 year-old man named Eddie Alterman. These are his rates:

While reading a text and driving at 35 mph, his average baseline reaction time of 0.57 second nearly tripled, to 1.44 seconds. While texting, his response time was 1.36 seconds. His reaction time after drinking averaged 0.64 seconds. The results at 70 mph were similar: Alterman’s response time while reading a text was 0.35 second longer than his base performance of 0.56 second, and writing a text added 0.68 second to his reaction time. But his intoxicated number increased only 0.04 second over the base score, to a total of 0.60 second.

Also, the Edgar Snyder & Associates website contains statistics that support the statement that texting while driving is more dangerous than drinking and driving:

•4 out of every 5 accidents (80%) are attributed to distracted drivers. In contrast, drunk drivers account for roughly 1 out of 3 (33%) of all accidents nationally
•Texting while driving is about 6 times more likely to result in an accident than driving while intoxicated.

In conclusion, driving while texting (reading or writing) can cause significantly slower reactions rates that driving while intoxicated.


I agree with the conclusion made from this expirement because I found 2 additional sources that say the same thing.
On ABC news, Oprah Winfrey says:

Texting behind the wheel is the equivalent of having four drinks and driving.

Also the website, Alcohol: Problems and Solutions talks about an expirement in Great Britain, coming up with the same conclusion as Car and Driver magazine.

Research in Great Britain has found that texting behind the wheel is more dangerous than driving while intoxicated.

Therefore, using these 4 different sources, one can trust that texting while driving is more dangerous than driving under the influence. However, I do NOT encourage you to drink and drive because there are still fatal consequences.

What is texting?

Texting is also known as SMS, Short Message Service. The information for this entry is all found in an article on the Car and Driver website

“text messaging”—brief messages limited to 160 characters that can be sent or received on all modern mobile phones.

Statistics

[Texting] is on the rise, up from 9.8 billion messages a month in December ’05 to 110.4 billion in December ’08.

The amount of text messages sent is becoming increasingly popular and without a doubt, some of these texts are being sent by people driving. Therefore, I agree with the statement that texting is starting to become a serious problem in the United States. To back up this statement, I found other soureces that agree with the statistics above, and my opinion.
In an article on Opposing Viewpoints, it says: 

Over all, texting has soared. In December, phone users in the United States sent 110 billion messages, a tenfold increase in just three years.

This quotation also shows that texting has been and continues to rise.  Texting is becoming more and more serious every year.