Texting While Driving

DCAutogeek, speed limiters in Europe, Jaguar C-X17, ignition interlocks, text liability

People, if there are any doubts as to just how dangerous texting while driving is, you need to watch this documentary, entitled From One Second to the Next, created by Werner Herzog for AT&T and co-presented by Sprint, Verizon and T-Mobile. The short film starts out by saying that more than 100,000 accidents occur each year by someone who is texting while driving, and then proceeds to tell just four stories that feature

In its continuing battle against distracted driving, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration has issued voluntary guidelines covering the use of in-car infotainment and communication devices. It is NHTSA's intention that the proposals, which have been in the works for a year and are partly based on a 2010 study called "Impact of Hand-Held and Hands-Free Cell Phone Use on Driving Performance and Safety Critical Event Risk," will be phas

On April 3, University of Northern Colorado student Alexander Heit lost control of his car while sending a text on his iPhone. The loss of control caused the car to roll over, and the 22-year-old died a short time after being transported by ambulance to a local hospital.

Back in January of 2012, Steven Spriggs was cited for using a cellphone while driving in California, violating the state's Vehicle Code Section 23123 that makes it illegal for someone to drive "while using a wireless telephone unless that telephone is specifically designed and configured to allow hands-free listening and talking, and is used in that manner while driving." In this case, though, while Spriggs did have the phone in his hands, he was using it to check directions on Google Maps, not

If you think texting while driving is dangerous, then you may be shocked to learn that many people do more than just text while driving, they actually browse the web while behind the wheel, and the number of people who do it is on the rise.

So far, 39 states have some form of law against texting while driving, but it is a hard thing to enforce. Many drivers continue to text on the road, confident that the local smokies won't spot their sins.

Texting while driving is a horrible, horrible idea. This is not news. And as unfortunate as this story may be, we have to admit, it's a little ironic.

Everyone needs a plan, and now Ray LaHood and his people at the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration have released their Blueprint for Ending Distracted Driving.

If for some reason you still don't think that texting while driving is a bad idea, here's a story for you. Aaron Deveau, age 17, was allegedly composing a text message when his car crossed the center line of a Massachusetts street, hitting a car head-on. In that car was Daniel Bowley, Jr. and his girlfriend, Luz Roman. Bowley Jr. suffered massive injuries in the crash, and after spending 18 days in a Boston hospital, died

Hiring a lawyer is like hiring a hitman. Except it's not against the law. A lawyer's job is to exert your will on your legal opponent – and on the legal system itself. So it should come as no surprise to see this evolution of distracted driving case law: The victims of a traffic accident have filed a lawsuit against both the motorist and the woman he was texting with when he caused the crash, according to the Huffington Post.

A European group called Responsible Young Drivers wanted to showcase the dangers of texting while driving, and got ad agency Publicis to help them out. The result: a two-minute spot that put trainee drivers in Belgium with an instructor who said part of their driving test would be to avoid an obstacle while texting a random sentence that he'd dictate.

In August of last year, a 19-year-old pickup driver received 11 texts in as many minutes while traveling down a Missouri highway outside Gray Summit. The truck rear-ended a stopped tractor trailer at speed, which was then struck by not one, but two school buses, resulting in a massive, multi-car pileup that left 38 people injured and two dead – including the serial texter and a 15-year-old student riding in one of the buses.

The evidence keeps mounting that texting while driving is too often destructive and deadly. A fatal crash near Omaha, Nebraska in mid-July is being blamed on a driver texting while driving in the seconds prior to the crash.

Declining Highway Death Rate Challenges Distracted Driving Fears

Distracted driving is an ongoing problem. A new State Farm poll proves once again that the roads are full of idiots. One in five of the 912 drivers State Farm informally surveyed in November admitted to accessing the Internet on their smartphones while driving. The insurance company will conduct a deeper study soon, and the 19 percent who admitted to surfing and driving in this study may actually be low for certain groups of drivers. Teenagers and young ad

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration claims that in 2009 alone, 5,500 fatalities and half a million injuries occurred as a direct result of distracted driving. The problem is so severe that Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood (above) recently felt compelled to address Autoblog readers directly in an effort to spread the word about how dangerous it is to multitask while d