I was sitting at a red light on South Park Avenue in Hamburg last weekend. I glanced over to my right and, in a scene that is becoming more and more common, saw the driver furiously pecking away at her cell phone.
I've been known to glance at the newspaper during an unusually long light, so I just assumed she was killing time until we hit green. Wrong. The light turned, and as my curiosity had gotten the best of me, my eyes were still trained on my fellow driver.
While barely glancing up, she hit the gas and shot forward, cell phone in one hand, which was also holding (actually, guiding would be a more accurate term) the steering wheel, while her other hand continued to type. As the two lanes merged, she gunned the engine and cut over in front of me. For the next 10 minutes I watched her cross over the yellow line no less than a half dozen times between Milestrip Road and the Village of Hamburg.
I know what you're thinking. Stupid teen drivers, they're gonna get someone killed out there. Though you are probably right, the sad part was, this was no fresh-faced 16-year-old with a newly minted drivers license. This woman was somewhere in her 40s and yet saw nothing wrong with operating a machine weighing thousands of pounds and capable of killing anyone in its path, while texting.
Unfortunately, people who would never dream of getting behind the wheel of a car after consuming alcohol, or while under the influence of drugs, think nothing of texting while driving. Maybe it's just a carry-over from the fact that everybody sends text messages everywhere these days. In the movie theater, at the doctor's office, in line at the store, at work during a meeting with their boss, people seem to have no boundaries when it comes to their need to text.
Though the other examples fall under a category of rude, even boorish behavior as Miss Manners would say, texting while driving endangers the lives of innocent people.
Don't believe me? AAA has called it a worse menace than alcohol, especially among young adults. Monica Farrar is the program director at the Resource Training Center in Amherst. She says traffic accidents are the leading cause of death among teens, accounting for 44 percent of all fatalities.
"Statistics show that drivers aged 16 to 24 are involved in fatal crashes at more than twice the rate of all other age groups," she says. "As prom and graduation seasons approach, it's important to remind young drivers and their parent's about driver safety.
If you are one of the people who gets put to sleep by statistics or questions their accuracy, forget about the 44 percent. Forget about the accident rates among young drivers. Toss those out and just imagine it is your son, daughter, sister, brother, entire family that is driving home. They are going the speed limit, obeying all the rules, coming back from a dinner out, and driving in the opposite direction, is a person texting. They aren't a bad person, not a bogeyman. They aren't drunk, they too have a family, a job, a future. But they are making a stupid choice and when they look down to see if their friend replied to their last text, they drift across the yellow line and slam head first into the car carrying your entire family.
Seat belts and air bags are important safety devices, but if you've never seen the results of a head-on crash between two cars driving 45 miles an hour, you could be wearing two seat belts and have the biggest airbag available, and the end result won't be good.
Statistics don't mean a thing to some people until someone they care about becomes a statistic.
The Resource Training Center is hosting a Safety Awareness Day this Saturday, May 7. The event will be held from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. at the Boulevard Mall in Amherst. The event is free and open to the public and among the educational programs available that day will be a "Text Simulator." People will be able to climb in a drive under realistic road conditions and text while they drive. They will also get to see what happens when they crash, including being airlifted to the hospital, and, should they survive, facing a judge to answer for their crime.
The day will also feature educational materials addressing speeding, distracted driving and aggressive driving habits and the impact they can have on all of us.
Cell phones are a part of life, especially for young people who treat them as just another body part. A few years back I was interviewing students on the campus of Buffalo State College for a piece on technology. One student told me she sends more than 3,000 text messages a month. Another said she sleeps with her cell phone under her pillow so she can feel the vibration and return text messages all night.
For all of the good the technology brings, it comes with a price. The more people who are texting, it is a matter of time before one of them is driving toward you on the road and they begin to drift ... For more information, visit www.resourcetraining.org