Texting and Driving

Dear Future President, My name is Roman, I am a senior at Clarkston High School and there is an issue that people really don’t take seriously on the road. By you reading this letter I’m pretty sure you can and will make America listen. Driving is very helpful to us Americans, as it get us to where we need to be quickly, But at the same time it is a huge danger for us. Everyone knows that drinking and driving is extremely dangerous as it impairs your vision and messes with your driving skills. It can lead to serious car accidents. Do you know what else is just as dangerous? Texting and driving. To many people toss this issue aside thinking that it's not that big of a deal, but in reality it's just as dangerous as drinking and driving and in some cases even more dangerous. People look at this as not a big deal because they think if they just take a peak or send a quick text that they can just multi task behind the wheel. We know that this isn't true, yet people still keep this mentality in there head. On June 2008 there was a girl named Amanda and she was taking a drive on the freeway. She thought it was a good idea to take her hands off the wheel and send a quick text, but the next thing she knew she was in a car wreck and rammed into the side of trailer. “I should not be alive!” “I should have been decapitated” Amanda said during an interview. She lost her right eye that day.It took 36 plates and 48 screws to rebuild her face. After 20 surgeries she is paralyzed from the neck down and is still recovering. You would expect after such a bad accident she would set an example for teens that think that it’s still a good idea to text and drive. Sadly, two years after her accident over 3,331 people died from texting and driving and 345,000 people were seriously injured. I’ve been doing research on this for a while and an article stated that 97% of teens, fifteen to nineteen years old know the dangers of texting and driving, but 43% still do it despite the dangers. 43% is too big a number. What I think should be done to shorten the 43% is to set laws that restrict using your phone in the car if you are driving it because that number is to high to just ignore. We need to make people teens and adults see that this is not a laughing matter and that this needs to be taken more seriously than it is or we will lose more people to this. There is plenty of places that send teens who have problems with controlling themselves around technology so if it gets that bad we have to send some teens to these reform programs so that they know that when they are on the road there only focus is what is on the road and not what is on there phone. Amanda was very lucky to survive that car crash and to this day she is still up and breathing but the next one might not be so lucky. Just like driving under the influence of alcohol if you are caught texting while driving you should be given a ticket because this is a serious issue and shouldn't be looked at and laughed at. I hope with reading this letter you read well what i have written and make a change so that America technology stops taking more lives. I know that you will make the right decision to make great again. Sincerely, Roman Source Citation (MLA 8th Edition) "Road Kill." Teen Vogue, June-July 2013, p. 100. Student Edition, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?p=STOM&sw=w&u=lom_accessmich&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA338106624&it=r&asid=eaaefebd36ebf05ead0b6e9a7615d3d9. Accessed 4 Nov. 2016.