Teens And Texting
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Teens Imitate Their Parents When It Comes to Texting While Driving
In 2008, 5,870 people were killed in crashes involving driver distraction according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. The proportion of drivers reportedly distracted at the time of the fatal crashes has increased from 8 percent in 2004 to 11 percent in 2008, the report adds.
More telling is the fact that the “under-20 age group had the highest proportion of distracted drivers involved in fatal crashes”
When my phone rings and I’m in the car with the boys, I ask one of my sons to answer the phone. “Why mom?”
“Because I’m driving.”
“So.”
That “so” opens up the chance to talk about the facts:
- Distraction from cell phone use while driving, whether hand held or hands free limits a driver’s reaction as much as having a blood alcohol concentration at the legal limit of .08 percent, according to a University of Utah study.
- Driving while using a cell phone reduces the amount of brain activity associated with driving by 37 percent, according to a report by Carnegie Mellon.
While my words and statistics sound impressive, and one would think those facts alone should be enough to make an impact, but they probably don’t. I’m probably 100 percent guaranteed that they don’t. Teens are notorious for letting information go in one ear and out the other. The real gold lies in what I’m actually doing – I’m keeping my hands off the phone – that’s the message their getting.
Since they were toddlers, we’ve watched our kids imitate us, repeat our ill-chosen words and, sometimes in our horror, do the exact things we’ve hoped they didn’t see us do.
Research backs this up: Parents are the biggest influencers on how teens drive – and it’s not what we say – it’s what we do. Almost two-thirds of high school teens say their parent’s talk on a cell phone while driving; almost half say their parents speed; and almost a third say their parents don’t wear a safety belt.
Because of the dangers of distracted driving, some states have already adopted legislation around cell phone use. While a full cell phone ban will probably never pass, the message I’m trying to model for my kids is that no phone call, no e-mail or text message is worth someone’s life.
How do you handle your cell phone around the kids while you’re in the car? Leave a comment for your solutions. Each comment this post receives benefits DoSomething.org with a $0.50 donation per comment up to $5,000.
Insightful post about the number of accidents… definitely sharing this with my kids — and my husband.
So true. Monkey see monkey do.
I have to break this habit!!@!
We forget that just because our kids aren’t toddlers anymore, and they have so many grown-up responsibilities that we have a free pass as parents. But they’re still watching us.
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