DOING 85 TEXTING?

Slow down, you crazy woman!!! This goes out to the female driver who flew by me recently headed west down Expressway 83/I 2 doing about 85, might have been 90, less than a foot behind the car in front of her while she was texting. She might have been eating a donut too and putting on her lipstick, but she was going so fast, I didn’t have time to get a real good look at her. We see that all the time these days – drivers texting, their heads looking down at their cell phone, completely oblivious as to what’s in front of them. If you GOOGLE “Texting drivers are a hazard,” countless stories pop up that show that our roadways have become a veritable slaughterhouse. Part of TxDOT’s tribute Tuesday at its district office to those killed on Texas roadways, over the past year, including state highway workers. One story published by CBS News in 2009 cited a government study that showed nearly 6,000 people were killed and nearly a half-million injured due to distracted drivers. We all know that it’s only grown worse over the past six years since that story was published. A story published two years ago at www.alertdriving.com says that texting while driving is now a worse public hazard than drunk drivers. Meanwhile, our state legislators are up in Austin spending time worrying about youth’s access to e-cigs? That same story published by alertdriving.com, by the way, also had this to say: “According to the National Safety Council, more than 100,000 automobile crashes a year involve texting while driving, and according to an AT&T Wireless survey, 75 percent of teens say texting while driving is ‘common’ among their friends.” Which probably explains why that young woman flying by me down the highway recently, doing approximately 85, while texting, typing away on the cell phone buried in her lap, looked as if she was headed toward a wreck. This Tuesday, TxDOT (Texas Department of Transportation) hosted a function at its Pharr District Office in support of National Work Zone Awareness Week, March 23-27, which serves as a reminder of those people who died in work zones last year – 146 in Texas alone. Eighty-seven percent of those were motorists. In 2014, there were 19,393 crashes in roadway construction and maintenance zones in Texas, resulting in 670 incapacitating injuries, 2,948 non-incapacitating injuries and 146 fatalities. The number of Work Zone fatalities in 2014 is an increase from those in 2013 which was 121. No doubt texting had something to do with it. The woman flying by me doing 85, or the guy busy texting getting ready to slam into the car in front of him might heed those numbers and commit them to heart, and promise themselves that they’ll slow down and drive more careful. And never text while behind the wheel. But they probably won’t do that. Why? Because their minds are occupied. They’re texting.