More dangerous than not vaccinating your child

[GreatGazoo]

is texting your child while they are driving.

11 teens die every day while texting at the wheel.

25% of all teens admit to texting at least once every time they are driving. 49% of boys and 45% of girls admit to texting while driving on a regular basis.

421,000 people are injured every year by drivers who are texting.

The laws against texting while driving are not enforced so there is no difference between states with texting/driving bans and those without.

The NHTSA estimates that texting while driving is six times more dangerous than driving with blood alcohol above 0.8% (legally drunk).

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2817684/Girl-20-left-blind-one-eye-permanently-disabled-texting-wheel-reveals-split-second-choice-left-pleading-friendship-Facebook.html

Our County has taken to cutting ribs in the center of the roads so that when texting drivers cross the centerline they get an audio warning but actual enforcement of a ban on texting at the wheel seems non-existent. Other drivers tolerate this -- if you saw some driver tilting up a fifth of vodka you might be inclined to call that in to law enforcement (for their safety as well as others) but when someone crosses the centerline while tapping out "YOLO" or something similar we just swerve and thank our lucky stars, until next time.

[longship]

1. Non sequitur!

One should both vaccinate your children. And one should teach them, hopefully when you teach them to drive, that texting while driving is an utterly fucked up thing to do.

One should do both because both save lives.

[Silent3]

2. The responsibility is on the person who receives the text, not the sender.

Yes, we can increase safety if people sending texts take into account that their recipients might be stupidly compulsive about immediately reading and responding to texts, but there's no way it's fair to consider people sending texts responsible for knowing the itineraries of the people they're sending to just to make sure their messages don't arrive while they're driving or operating heavy machinery.

One of the big reasons for text messaging, in fact, is that it's a form of communication that doesn't demand immediate response, unlike voice calls -- despite the pressure some people put on themselves (or allow to be put on themselves) to read and respond quickly.