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Hot or Not: Texting While Driving
Jun 29 2009 by Jennifer Newman
Moms are multitaskers. I can help my oldest son find his glasses, feed the dog and play “Star Wars” with my youngest, all at the same time. However, there’s one place where moms, dads and everybody else needs to stop multitasking: behind the wheel of a car. In a road test, Car & Driver found that texting while driving is more dangerous than driving with a blood alcohol level of 0.08, the legal limit.
The test, which took place on an abandoned air strip, measured the difference in reaction times when driving with no distractions, driving while reading a text, actively texting and driving under the influence of alcohol.
Car & Driver Editor in Chief Eddie Alterman, 37, and intern Jordan Brown, 22, served as guinea pigs for the test. The results? Both drivers’ reaction times were significantly slower when they were reading a text and writing a text. They had better reaction times when they were driving under the influence of alcohol. That’s scary.
This test by Car & Driver caught my attention because I didn’t think it was dangerous to read a text while driving. It was just one more multitasking thing that I could do in the car: drive, talk to the kids, fiddle with the radio and read a text. Clearly, I was wrong. I don’t text and drive, and now I’ll no longer read a text while the car is moving.
Are you willing to give up texting while driving? Tell us in the comment section below.
I never text while driving, because it is in fact another distraction in the car. It’s just as bad as cycling through your contacts or dialing a number on your phone in order to make a call. Usually, if I receive a text, I’ll check it at a red light, and respond only if I have the time. If it turns green in the middle of a text, I don’t finish it. It’s that simple.