Distracted driving has become a major safety hazard. According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), in 2011, ten percent of fatal crashes and seventeen percent of injury crashes were due to distracted drivers. Of those accidents, ten percent of them were caused by drivers using cell phones. If these drivers had been paying attention to the road instead of interacting with their cell phones then these numbers could have been reduced. To save lives, state governments need to make cell phone use while driving illegal. Cell phone use has grown exponentially over the last decade. Almost everyone has one now. Text messaging has increased as well. "In June of 2000, nearly 12.5 million SMS text messages were sent monthly. By June 2010, nearly 173 billion text messages were sent monthly" (Sherzan). A study performed by the Virginia Tech Transportation Institute in 2009 showed that text messaging, which had the highest risk of over 20 times worse than driving while not using a phone, also had the longest duration of eyes-off-road …show more content…
Considering actions such as eating/drinking and grooming as just as dangerous as cell phone use does not hold merit. "The ability to decide when, where, and how long these distractions occur is important to understand - drivers can choose when to eat, shave, drink, or apply makeup while they are driving, and these activities often last for only a few brief moments. Cell phone conversations, on the other hand, can change dramatically and last several minutes" (Sherzan). It is the job of law enforcement agencies to devise ways to enforce the law. Similar arguments of being difficult to enforce were given when laws were first passed requiring seat belts to be worn. Those difficulties have been overcome and seatbelt violations are now being