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Ashley McNeill
ENC 3250
Barbara Kyle
23 March 2015
The Hazards of Texting While Driving
(Literature Review)
In recent years the issue of texting and driving has become an increasingly large issue.
As a matter of fact it is documented in the National Highway and Traffic Safety reports that,
“12% of all fatal crashes involving at least one distracted driver are estimated to be related to
cell phone use while driving (Sherin, 2014).” This may seem like a relatively small number,
however this is an issue has the ability to increase if the public is not properly educated on this
issue. That is why it is imperative to start providing this information now, and what better way
to do so than to start with those that are most likely to perform this act; teenagers and young
adults. In order to address this issue I am going to present my proposal to several high school
SADD Clubs, Students against drunk driving, for them to do presentations on all forms of
distracted driving instead of targeting only drunk driving.
In order to provide evidence that there is already some support for my topic I found a
scholarly journal by Kevin Sherin that provides information on past movements made to help
rectify this issue. According to sherin many states have started to make laws banning the use of
a cellular device while driving. However, each of these laws comes with some restriction,
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because it is near impossible to completely eliminate usage with everyone. An example of these
restrictions include, “ Arkansas has made movements to ban all cellular usage, however at this
moment are only capable of completely banning usage with school bus drivers and drivers
younger than the age of 18 (Sherin).” There are several other states that share the same
restrictions, so it shows that it is in the general population’s interest to protect the youth. This
would help me pose the argument that much of the youth are actually the ones in the danger
zone of committing this possibly fatal act.
The one downside to this argument is the fact that people have this fear that if they are
willing to let young adults have some of their privileges taken away that it may affect their own
rights. Jim Sollisch has the right idea when he says that people have a “slippery slope”
mentality. He says people think, “If we ban texting while driving, then soon we’ll be banning
eating while driving. Before you know it, you won’t be able to switch stations on your radio.
And you know where that will lead: to a totalitarian state (Sollisch).” While this is a situation
where the progression escalates a little quickly, it perfectly outlines the average person’s state
of mind. They do not want to risk losing things just because of a single issue that they feel
should not affect them anyway. Why worry about a problem when it does not directly relate to
you?
The truly motivating evidence that I came upon was the completely anonymous survey I
distributed to four local high schools. At each school I gave the front desk secretary, with the
permission of the principal, one hundred surveys to be distributed randomly during the
student’s home base. Once I got them all back I counted out the number of students that got
the same answer and then divided them by the total of four hundred surveys. At least two out
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of five admitted to texting while driving, that’s forty percent, and then another one out of five
students admit to being in the car while the driver was texting, that’s twenty percent. All
together at least sixty percent of students were affected by texting and driving in some way.
While this is a relatively small sample size, it does provide a fairly relevant sample that can be
expounded upon as the project progresses.
Hopefully these sources will give me the ability to properly state my argument, and
convince people that this is an issue worth taking note of.
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Annotated Bibliography
Anonymous. "Texting While Driving." Paper copy interview.
Sherin, Kevin. "Preventing Texting While Driving." American Journal of Preventative Medicine 47.5 (2014): 681-688. Web 1 march, 2015.
Sollisch, Jim. "Inconvenient Truths to a Ban on Texting While Driving." Csmonitor.com. The Christian Science Monitor, 17 May 2012. Web. 22 Mar. 2015.