Student Media of Lindenwood University in St. Charles, Missouri

Lindenlink

Student Media of Lindenwood University in St. Charles, Missouri

Lindenlink

Student Media of Lindenwood University in St. Charles, Missouri

Lindenlink

Texting and Driving

Jon Holden | Lindenlink Reporter

I go back and forth when it comes to government decision making. On one hand I believe we live in a great country; on another I believe we have a hard time taking initiative and are over run by paranoia. We as people have a hard time deciding what side of the fence we are on when it comes to decision making. That isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but on a mass scale we tend to ignore very little details that I believe make the most amount of difference.

The idea of texting and driving, a largely debated and surprisingly controversial topic has been discussed in almost all state legislatures. Now police officers can say they are “cracking down” on the rapid growing syndrome that is texting and driving. I don’t really buy that because of the miniscule number of tickets and or revenue that city and states have gained because of the issue. I don’t disagree with idea of texting and driving. I think in a vast majority of cases it does cause distractions to the person driving and puts anyone within 300 foot radius also at risk. The only time I feel it wouldn’t be one is when you’re sitting at a stop sign or stop light. Even then it gets annoying because chances are you’re late to realizing the light turns green. That in itself annoys more people than it is worth, if fellow police officers alike are “cracking down” on the issue then why so little results to the problem?

I once a read an article from the New York Times that was talking about how studies have been done to prove that texting and driving is equivalent to driving drunk. My question stands as this: If so many people admit to texting and driving, and texting and driving is as bad as driving drunk. Then why is it so difficult to find the culprits of texting and driving? If it is so similar, one would assume that the side effects of operating an automobile would also be similar. Cops are apparently trained to tell if someone is swerving on the road. Everyone also knows that when a cop is following you at night they turn their brights on to see your face and eyes while you’re driving. So when the signs of someone swerving, not stopping all the way at a stop sign, or any other miscellaneous trick people use, you can’t tell me if their head is looking down at their lap? It seems a little ridiculous in my opinion.

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The difficulty of finding someone who is texting and driving shouldn’t be a difficult task. Besides, if its equivalent to driving drunk, why do DUI’s cause jail time, loss of license, and fines up to thousands of dollars and not to mention, if you hit someone while intoxicated you’re facing hospital bills on top of the prison sentence. It is not that we can’t find people who text and drive. It’s that we don’t want to.

Why would you pull someone over, ruin their day because they sent a text message? Ignoring possible radio calls for domestic violence, robbery and murder. Cops don’t want to see texting and driving because they’re too busy seeing potential drug dealers, drunk drivers which actually causes impairment to the brain, or even people who decide to 80 in a 65 during rush hour. In the grand scheme of things, cops do not have time to worry about people who text and drive, and quite frankly neither do I. So honestly pick your poison.

 

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