A recently released study by the Virginia Tech Transportation Institute (VTTI) said that a driver’s risk of collision is 23 times greater when they are texting. Distracted driving has been the cause of thousands of accidents and many deaths. In fact, texting while driving kills nearly 6000 people every year in the US alone according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Authority. Here are some of the horror stories:

• A Boston trolley car driver crashed while he was texting his girlfriend.

• Five Rochester NY classmates died less than one week after graduation because the driver was texting.

• A 22-year-old woman ran into a stationary emergency vehicle with its lights flashing while sending a text.

• A Seattle man caused a multi-car pile-up on an interstate by taking a quick second to scan his email.

• A California mother lost her 2-year-old child when an 18-year-old student who was texting and driving hit the pair as they were walking through a crosswalk.

• A New Jersey couple each lost a leg when a texting driver struck their motorcycle.

DON’T BE THE NEXT HORROR STORY

While New Jersey is amongst 34 states in which text messaging while driving is banned, a Fairleigh Dickinson-PublicMind poll on New Jersey driving habits found motorists who admit to texting while driving jumped 40 percent from 2008 to 2009. The poll, co-sponsored by the New Jersey Division of Highway Safety, also found one out of five drivers has sent a text while operating a vehicle. This trend has to stop.

A recent scientific study based on National Highway Traffic Safety Administration and FCC data showed that about 16,000 people died in the U.S. between 2001 and 2007 as a result distracted driving from mobile phone use. More recently, the U.S. Department of Transportation reported that nearly 5,500 people died in crashes involving a distracted driver in 2009. And the National Safety Council estimates that each year, 100,000 car crashes have been tied to texting and driving while an additional 1.2 million annual accidents involve cell phone use.

What You Should Consider & What You Can Do

• Keep your eyes on the road. Reading or sending a text takes your eyes off the road for an average of five seconds. When you’re driving 50-60mph, that’s the equivalent of driving the length of a football field with your eyes shut!

• Just pull over. Chances are, your phone call or text can wait. If you absolutely must communicate with someone, pull over or go to the next rest stop.

• Don’t rely on headsets. While you may using a headset is a solution, it isn’t really safer than operating a hand-held. You’re still answering and dialing, causing your eyes to be off the road. That means distracted driving.

• Would you drive drunk? Hopefully not. It turns out driving while texting isn’t much worse. A recent study, A Comparison of the Cell Phone Driver and the Drunk Driver, shows that the risk of crash for driving while using a cell phone is four times that of a non-impaired driver. This turns out to be the same risk of crash for driving with a Blood Alcohol Content (BAC) of .08%. For a driver who is texting, the risk of crash is eight times that of a non-impaired driver.