Are cellphones killing people?
Maybe not the devices themselves, but they contribute to countless amounts of car accidents worldwide. I, myself, cannot count how many times I have nearly been hit by drivers using their cellphones behind the wheel. Those close calls are why my phone is silenced and out of my reach when I am driving. The lives of any passengers I have in the car, as well as the lives of the drivers I share the road with, are far more important to me than fiddling with my cellphone to answer a phone call. If the caller deems the call important, they will leave a message and I will return it once I am out of the vehicle.
Maybe not the devices themselves, but they contribute to countless amounts of car accidents worldwide. I, myself, cannot count how many times I have nearly been hit by drivers using their cellphones behind the wheel. Those close calls are why my phone is silenced and out of my reach when I am driving. The lives of any passengers I have in the car, as well as the lives of the drivers I share the road with, are far more important to me than fiddling with my cellphone to answer a phone call. If the caller deems the call important, they will leave a message and I will return it once I am out of the vehicle.
This was driven home especially loud and clear yesterday
(Wednesday, August 13th, 2013). Around 11:30am, a cube van hit a TTC
bus nearly head on, killing a 52-year old married mother of two and injuring a dozen
others. The cube van, traveling east, veered into the oncoming lane, drove
through an intersection and hit the TTC bus. Witnesses stated that the
driver of the cube van was using his cellphone at the time of the crash.
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| Crash at Steeles Ave. and Middlefield Rd. in Scarborough on Aug. 13th, 2013 |
I cannot stand it when people use their cellphones behind
the wheel. I am extremely
uncomfortable riding with distracted drivers, and absolutely hate it when the person driving the car
I am in is texting or talking on the phone. I don’t mean to say that I am more
important than the next person, but I value my life and I do not want to die
because of someone’s incredibly stupid decision to use their cellphone behind
the wheel.
A few months ago, there was an accident at the corner my
apartment building sits in. One driver ran a red light because… you guessed it;
she was using her damn cellphone. No one was seriously injured, thank God, but
someone could have been.
This is an issue I am very passionate about, and I am going
to ask you a couple of questions. Do YOU want to be responsible for killing somebody’s son,
daughter, mother, or father because of a text? Do you want to kill yourself? Because of a conversation?
This:
Can lead to this:
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| Is it worth it? |
Is it really worth it?
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| I am Christian and I love Christ, but I don't particularly want to meet Him this way! |
According to US statistics, drivers are 23% more likely to get into an accident while texting and driving. Here are some more US stats involving texting and driving:
I’m going to leave you with something they should include in
driving schools everywhere. The linked video below was taken in Belgium as part
of a project that tricked young drivers into believing that in order to pass
their driving test, they have to be able to successfully text and drive on a
closed course. I will let the video speak for itself.
I ask you once again. Is
it really worth it?
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