Is your last text worth dying for?

image http://mashable.com/2010/03/08/att-texting-driving/

Hi everyone! I hope you guys enjoyed your weekend! This past weekend I realized that a lot of us are very careless when we drive! Many recent accidents have been caused because of people who choose to text while they were driving, and sadly most of these accidents end up deadly. This year on September 12, 2010 we had “Don’t text and drive Awareness day", in order to raise awareness of the dangers of texting while driving.

According to CNBC while going 70 mph it takes the average person to brake:

• 0.54 seconds unimpaired

• 4 feet talking on a cell phone or legally drunk

• 36 feet if reading email

• 70 feet if texting

• According to Dr. Strayer from the University of Utah "a driver is 4 times more likely to be in an accident if they are talking on a cell phone while driving, and 8 times more likely if they are texting while driving".

I wanted to share a sad story about a girl who didn’t think texting while driving could wait:

“Mariah West was a devoted texter.

At 18, she could hold dinner conversations with her family while surreptitiously texting with friends, hiding her cell phone under the table.

Everyone in the Rogers, Ark., high school senior's circle had warned her about texting while driving; they'd see her car swerve and know what she was doing. It cost her her life.

Last May, on the day before graduation, Mariah was driving to a Minor League Baseball game in Springfield, Mo., texting with the player who'd invited her. As she was sending him a text, she lost control of the car, which clipped a bridge, skidded on its roof along the edge of the bridge and flipped back into oncoming traffic.

Mariah, who had been getting directions to the Springfield Cardinals' stadium, was partially ejected, her skull crushed, says her mother, Merry Dye, 45. The last message Mariah got: "Where U At."

Story written by By Larry Copeland from USA TODAY

It's really important for us to spread the awareness in order to stop drivers from texting while driving. I personally forget sometimes how dangerous it is, and I remind myself every time I think of doing it. At the moment we might think that it’s really important to send a text to someone, but I am sure it’s not so important that you are willing to risk your life for it.

Look at the last text you got on your phone, is that text worth dying for?