Texting while driving kills; new site aims to stop it

There's a picture making its way across the Web that shows a church marquee message board. The movable letters spell out: "Honk if you love Jesus. Text while driving if you want to meet him."

It's too true to be funny. That smile I wiped from my face must have been my cynical side showing. Texting and driving just don't mix, but for some reason people keep doing it.

I see people tapping out messages from behind the wheel of moving vehicles every day. For every 10 people I see talking on mobile phones while trying to navigate the highways and side streets, I see at least five more juggling text messages.

That's my very unscientific observation. Here are the facts about texting and other forms of distracted driving, based on a report released in June by the Pew Internet and American Life Project:

■ Adults are just as likely as teens to have texted while driving and are substantially more likely to have talked on the phone while driving.

■ Twenty-seven percent of all American adults (including those without cell phones) and 26 percent of 16- and 17-year-olds reported texting from behind the wheel when the survey was taken in September 2009.

■ Nearly half (49 percent) of adults (people older than 18) say they have been passengers in a car when the driver was sending or receiving text messages.

■ Forty-four percent of adults say they have been passenger in vehicles in which the driver used a mobile phone in "a way that put themselves or others in danger."

Eighty-two percent of Americans age 18 and older now use cell phones, up from 65 percent in 2004. Of those, 58 percent of adults now send or receive text messages. The survey found that 75 percent of teens age 12 to 17 own a cell phone, with 66 percent texting.

The report includes more data specific to distracted driving. For example, 17 percent of American adults say they have bumped into something or someone while using their cell phones. You get the picture. It's a growing problem.

The U.S. Department of Transportation has created distraction.gov, a site dedicated to preventing distracted driving. The message there is simple: "Put it down!" Your cell phone, that is. Don't be tempted to talk or text and drive.

The site has teamed with Seventeen magazine and AAA for a contest designed to raise the awareness of distracted driving. The National Two-Second Turn off Day Video Challenge is set for Sept. 17. The premise is that it takes just two seconds to turn off your cell phone.

Videos featuring distracted driving can be uploaded to the site (http://www.seventeen.com/twoseconds). The best will win a $2,000 prize.

The real prize, though, will be eliminating distracted driving. I can wait to meet Jesus.

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