Texting and Driving vs. Drunk Driving Essay Example for Free

Texting and Driving vs. Drunk Driving Essay Texting and Driving vs. Drunk Driving Over the last century, technology has helped society move forward, making things faster and easier. Having a vehicle has allowed people to reach a destination faster than they would if they had to ride a bike or even walk. Also the ability to now text using a cell phone speeds up the communication process even more. With all the new technological advances you have to many people taking advantage of it; by texting while they are driving to make business or personal communications even faster. On the other hand you have a new technological advance combined with the alcohol that has been around for ages. Drinking brings out a different side in every person. You have some people that are happy, outgoing, or funny drinkers. Then you have some people that are mad drinkers that want to fight any body that makes a joke about them. Last but certainly not least you have the stupid drinkers; these are the type of people that after drinking decide to get in their car and try and drive and put not only their selves, but many other people in danger. Both texting and driving, and driving under the influence are very dangerous, considering that you could not only kill yourself, but many more people also; but which is worse? The low number of scientific studies may be indicative of a general assumption that if talking on a mobile phone increases risk, then texting also increases risk, and probably more so, 89% of U. S. adults think that text messaging while driving is distracting, dangerous, and should be outlawed. (â€Å"Verifiabilityâ€Å")The AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety has released pol ling data that show that 87% of people consider texting and e-mailing while driving a very serious safety threat, almost equivalent to the 90% of those polled who consider drunk driving a threat. †. So why do people continue to text and drive and drive while intoxicated. With all test that have been conducted and the scary results, I don’t understand how people could stand to put their own lives at risk everyday. Another test conducted by the Transport Research Laboratory in London took it a step further. It found that drivers who sent a text had slower response times, and were more likely to drift in and out of lanes compared to drivers who were intoxicated. The study found that reaction times for those who sent a text while driving were 35 percent worse than when they drove without any distractions at all. When driving while intoxicated, the reaction time was only 12 percent worse than when the driver was sober and driving without any texting distractions (â€Å"Neiger†). The third test showed; At 35 miles an hour, Mr. Alterman’s average reaction time was . 57 seconds, but while texting it rose to 1. 36 seconds, more than twice his average reaction time of . 64 seconds while under the influence. Mr. Brown fared better, but his average reaction time of . 45 seconds rose to . 52 seconds while texting, worse than his average time of . 6 seconds while driving drunk. The results of the tests at 70 miles an hour were better in terms of reaction times. But at highway speeds, the extra distance traveled before coming to a complete stop was much greater. For example, Mr. Alterman traveled an average of four feet farther while driving drunk and an average of 70 feet farther while texting(â€Å"Changâ€Å"). As a research shows, texting and driving is much worse than driving while drunk. When you drive drunk it makes your reaction time a little slower and throws your balance off a little bit. But on the other hand texting and driving is much worse because, when you send or read a text you are taking your eyes completely of the road. Taking your eyes off the road can result in a very fatal car crash if you were to drift into the other lane, or if someone just decides to pull out in front of you; how would you know about it? Even though drunk driving is better than texting and driving, neither one of the two need to be done because you never know what could happen, and how many people you can hurt.