A Teen's Take On Driving, Texting and Simply Not Paying Attention

We hear it everywhere.  How texting and driving is the new menace to society. How teens are more susceptible to this threat, making them the main audience to PSAs on TV, radio and a myriad of other places.  Personally, I find the real menace to be anything other than paying undivided attention to the road.  As a teen, I consider myself to be a very safe driver and the only near miss that I've had was when my phone was off, I was going the speed limit and driving home from school with no distractions at all, I just had a momentary lapse in concentration and I nearly hit another car.  I was in the ideal situation for a teen driver , but it still was unsafe.

Research done by Liberty Mutual and Students Against Destructive Decisions (SADD) has revealed that on average, teens are driving 44% more during the summer, and 68% have been in a "near miss" type of incident.  Also, 88% of those who have been in a near miss admitted to either speeding, texting, talking to a passenger or changing songs on an MP3 player at the time.  Those are the type of statistics that shock you at first, because it illustrates the already obvious connection between driving distracted and near misses, but it still misses something.

Now that it's summer, it becomes even more important that we all understand that things like texting and driving is asking for a bad ______ (situation) to find you.  I admit, it's tough to put that texting conversation on hold, but it's a lot easier than explaining how you got into an accident.  I have to be honest though, it sort of baffles me that we all stop there.  It's not just texting and driving or driving under the influence, it's not paying attention in general.

How many times have you been driving with your parents, a friend or someone else and they noticeably zone out?  Have you ever anxiously grabbed your arm rest a little bit when you take that one turn a little bit quickly?  I just happen to have noticed everyone's behavior in the car is a little bit too relaxed some times, and it doesn't stop at "hey, you're driving, stop texting."

Am I a little bit crazy?  Do you have any opinions on this growing issue?