SmallBizResource Blog -- Mobility

Please, Don't Text While Driving

Posted by Gayle Kesten Friday, Sep 19, 2008, 02:08 PM ET

Cell phone records indicate that the engineer whose commuter train crashed last week, killing 25 people and injuring more than 130, was sending text messages while on duty.

Though it's not clear whether Robert Sanchez was receiving texts at or near the time of the crash, Verizon Wireless records confirm he was texting during his shift, during which his train ran a red light and crashed into a freight train just north of Los Angeles. Sanchez was among the 25 who died in what's said to be the worst domestic train accident in 15 years. (Unfortunately, someone now needs to update the Wikipedia entry about the Big Bayou Canot train disaster.)

"Texting is worse than talking on a cell phone because your eyes are down," said Jack Gold, an analyst with J. Gold Associates, who spoke to NetworkWorld. "This accident just points out the fact that a lot of people don't use common sense while texting, and more legislation forbidding it is coming, I'm sure."

I'm certainly among "a lot of people" who are guilty of texting while at the wheel. And stupid, nonrelated-work stuff, too, like a random expletive to my sister-in-law in California, just to make her laugh while stuck on the 405. Then, stupidly, she'd text me back. Count ours among the hundreds of millions of text messages that were sent between July 2007 and June 2008.

A new study from across the pond found that texting while driving is even more dangerous than being drunk or on drugs: "Texting had the biggest impact on their ability to keep a vehicle in a lane, with their steering skills judged to be 91 percent worse compared to 35 percent if they had smoked cannabis. Their reaction times also slowed by 35 percent, a much steeper decline than drivers who had reached the legal drink driving limit (12 percent) or smoked cannabis (21 percent)."

To date, only five U.S. have passed legislation that bans texting while driving -- Washington, Alaska, Louisiana, Minnesota and New Jersey -- while more than a dozen are considering to do the same.

I don't see why they shouldn't, or why the 20-something remaining states don't follow their lead.

Too bad it requires a tragedy to really get the ball rolling.

Mobility