Texting and driving causes over three thousand deaths and three hundred and thirty thousand injuries per year. In five seconds, one can go from being the best athlete on their team to the player sitting in the sidelines watching their teammates play, regretting the three small words that they sent while they were on the road.
In five seconds, one can go from the top of their class to having brain damage after a car crash caused by just five letters. In Wil Craig’s case, these five letters were “where r.” Wil Craig is a 19-year-old young man who was in a car crash that immediately led to brain damage for him. Wil wasn’t the individual who made the mistake of texting and driving; his girlfriend was committing the reckless act and Wil just so happened to be in the passenger seat of the car, yet he is the one who suffers the consequences.
He is now incapable of participating in normal, everyday activities with his friends; he even has trouble speaking. Wil understands that what his girlfriend did was irresponsible and dangerous, and he wishes teenagers would learn from his story. Wil had a collapsed lung and four broken ribs. He had to have a tracheotomy. What’s worse is that Wil was actually declared dead three times before he got over the coma, which he was in for eight weeks. Is a single text worth the risk?
It seems to me that only the people who have experienced a tragedy due to texting and driving are truly aware of its dangers. The parents of a 17-year-old girl who died in this way on her first day of school now encourage drivers to resist the tempting distraction that cell phones provide while driving. Deianerah Logan, the driver who died after crashing into the back of a school bus, also injured a 7 and 11-year-old student on the bus. The 7-year-old, Ethan Hinton, was exiting the bus and the impact knocked him off of his feet.
"I got a terrible bruise, and she didn't make it," the young boy told FOX 9 News. Deianerah’s parents announced the cause of their daughter’s death to the student body of the school she was going to (she would have been a senior in high school at the time) and reminded them to put down their phones while they were on the road.
According to Araksya Karapetyan, a News Anchor and reporter, a recent case in New Jersey saw a state appeals court decided that the person texting the individual that gets into a car accident while texting that person back could possibly be held liable. This decision was made because of an accident that occurred when Kyle Best was on the road in 2009 texting his girlfriend, Shannon Colonna. His truck drifted across to the opposite lane and hit a married couple that was riding on a motorcycle. The couple both lost their legs and sued both Kyle and his girlfriend for being Kyle’s distraction. They lost against Shannon, but appealed the decision. Three judges ruled that only if the person sending the distracting message is aware that the recipient is driving could he or she be held responsible. Because of this, Shannon was off the hook, but there’s no doubt that both she and Kyle will regret this accident for the rest of their lives. It can be difficult to resist the urge to check your phone while driving, but before you do— think about what you’re risking.
