Dear Future President,

I am writing about a very serious issue in our country today, texting while driving. Every year, sixty percent of drivers between the age of eighteen and sixty four have admitted to using their cell phone while driving. Texting while driving makes up twenty seven percent of the drivers in fatal crashes that were attributed with distracted driving. I feel like this issue is not getting enough attention.

There are so many accidents that include texting and driving that severely injure or kill other people due to car crashes. This happened to my good friend Tita Shaffer and her mom Emma Shaffer. They got hit by another car that was on their phone texting someone while driving. They both passed away on the scene. Not only did it affect their family, but it affected hundreds of others too. This is just one of the thousands of accidents that happen each year in the United States and I think it needs to change. There are no laws saying that texting while driving isn’t allowed, and I think there needs to be one. My cheer gym has created a website where everyone can go vote for there to be a law for this issue, and 25,000 people agree.

We all think that lives need to stop ending due to one person trying to send one text to one other person. It can wait until the driver gets to their destination or a parking lot, but not on the highway, or streets. No matter how important the text is, think about what could happen if you get too distracted. Most people who are in this situation are trying to send “on my way” or “almost there” texts, that aren’t very necessary. If you really needed to let someone know this, you could just use siri or call them, it doesn’t require getting very distracted.

I hope that you take this idea into consideration and maybe put a law against texting while driving, because all lives matter, and it can wait. Thank you for your time and for understanding how important this is.

Sophie F.

Texas