In just under two weeks, it will be illegal to drive a car while reading or composing a text message.

But there’s no need for anyone to wait until then to give up texting. Of all the ways communication technology has conspired to distract us, this has got to be the most dangerous and easiest to avoid.

There has been a lot written about the cultural differences between “digital natives” and “digital immigrants,” the latter being those who grew up before computers and the former being those for whom they have always been a fact of life.

Unfortunately it is the digital natives who have come to believe that everyone is supposed to be available all of the time. Because these are predominately the younger members of our society, they are also the drivers who put themselves and others at the greatest risk when they get behind the wheel. Teenage drivers make up 4.9 percent of the driving public but are involved in 12.3 percent of crashes and 8.6 percent of fatalities.

Electronic text messages are nearly irresistible for the population of drivers who least need a reason to take their eyes and attention off the road. Inexperience combined with distraction come together to create a dangerous brew.

Too many young people believe that they are so adept with a keyboard that they can get away with it. A demonstration put on by the Scarborough Police Department this week convinced at least some of them that they can’t.

There are still drivers who haven’t yet received this message, and if it takes fines, license suspensions and higher insurance rates to deliver it, we have been waiting long enough.

 


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