This should make you think twice about sending a text while driving.
In April 2011, a woman named Aimee Eckert was driving down an Alabama road on a seemingly normal day when a car hit her head-on. The driver in the other vehicle was texting on her phone.
Aimee was pregnant with a boy, but she lost the child. “They say she was going about 75,” she said. Now, Aimee has metal in every limb and had to get surgery on her heart. She also had her leg amputated at the knee.
But she said that losing her unborn child is the worst thing of all. “I never got to touch him,” she said. “I always feel the loss.” Aimee said that regarding texting and driving, “It’s just not worth it.”
Regarding texting and driving, the FCC says:
- The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration reported that in 2012 driver distraction was the cause of 18 percent of all fatal crashes – with 3,328 people killed – and crashes resulting in an injury – with 421,000 people wounded.
- Forty percent of all American teens say they have been in a car when the driver used a cell phone in a way that put people in danger, according to a Pew survey.
- The Virginia Tech Transportation Institute found that text messaging creates a crash risk 23 times worse than driving while not distracted.
- Eleven percent of drivers aged 18 to 20 who were involved in an automobile accident and survived admitted they were sending or receiving texts when they crashed.
