Texting and driving is not only stupid, it’s now illegal

Governor Tom Corbett has made some decisions during his time in office that we don't agree with (see PASSHE budget), but this week, Corbett signed a bill we couldn't have been happier to see passed.

On Wednesday, Corbett signed a bill that will outlaw texting and driving in the state of Pennsylvania. Once the law goes into effect in March, texting and driving will be a primary offense with a $50 fine.

With this law, Pennsylvania will join the more than 30 other states that ban texting and driving.

Butler County was reminded just how dangerous texting and driving is when we heard about Alex Summers, a 17-year-old senior at Knoch High School in Saxonburg, who died in a texting and driving accident just hours after the Pa. Senate passed the bill onto Governor Corbett's desk.

State police believe Summers was answering a text from a friend asking what time cheerleading practice was the next day when her car ran off the road and hit a tree on Nov. 1.

We are all guilty of sending the occasional text message while driving. Or even looking down at our iPod to see what song is playing. Or checking our phone briefly to see what time it is.

While we can all sit there and say "this won't happen to me" or "I know what I'm doing," the fact is it can happen to you and you don't know what you're doing.

Here's another fact you might find interesting. According to an article by the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, Bevi Powell, director of communications for AAA East Central, said that when anyone takes their eyes off the road for two seconds, they are twice as likely to crash. A text message takes an average of 4.6 seconds to send.

That makes you four times as likely to crash while you're sending that single text message.

It's sad to us that the government has to pass a law stopping people from doing something so dangerous not only to themselves, but to others as well.

Think about the other people on the road with you. What about that mother and father you just passed with their baby in the back seat? If you had taken those 4.6 seconds to look down at your phone and answer a text….well, you can imagine what could happen.

We can only hope that once this law against texting and driving goes into effect, the quantity of these types of accidents will decline. That might be an optimistic hope, but we hold it all the same.

Here's a small solution, something you can do. When you get in the car, put your phone away. Put it on the seat beside you, in your backpack or purse, throw it in the back seat, whatever will stop you from having the urge to look at it.

And if you hear your phone beep, or feel it vibrate in your pocket while you're driving, think about what that text could possibly say, and if it's worth risking your own life and the lives of the people sharing the road with you.