Your phone buzzes and you look down, you’re only distracted for what feels like less than a second but meanwhile the car in front of you slams on their breaks at a red light, you hit the car going 50 mph and rear end them, destroying both cars.

Doing random tasks while you are driving may not seem like a very dangerous thing, but on average in a day nine people are killed and countless are injured as a result of people being distracted while they were driving.

“Each day in the United States, approximately 9 people are killed and more than 1,000 injured in crashes that are reported to involve a distracted driver,” according to information published by Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.  

Driving needs more attention than what most people think. You’re not the only person on the road so you can never really know what is going on in the cars surrounding you.

“You can’t be distracted because you don’t know what distractions are happening in the cars around you, so you need to be alert and able to drive defensively in case they are driving destructively,” Drivers Ed. teacher Greg Moyes said. 

  You may not think that, that text you are going to send can put you into danger because it only takes three seconds to do, but that’s all it takes. 

“My wife, son, and a few different kids from Combs were hit all because the guy looked down at his phone for three seconds and ran a red light, that’s all it takes for you to be distracted for a short period of time, a lot can happen in those few seconds,” Moyes said.

  If you are on your phone while you are driving, you may get a lot more distracted than you think. So much can happen in such a little time that glancing down to answer a text could mean getting rear ended. 

“My step sister was texting on her phone while driving while she was on the free way and rear ended someone in my car,” junior Cameron Ricks said. “Being distracted while you are driving in a way is worse than driving drunk because at least the drunk person has their eyes on the road, so much can happen in a little bit of time so its not even worth looking down”. 

You may think that that phone or text message is extremely important, but is it more important that you?

“Life is precious, that text message won’t be so important if you are no longer there to read it,”said Moyes 

In January 2021 Arizona becomes the 48th state to ban texting and driving, drivers caught on their mobile devices will be fined at a minimum of $150 and upwards of $250, until then drivers will be given warnings to those caught. 

“Law enforcement will now be issuing warnings to drivers caught violating the bill until January 2021,” according to an article by Bayan Wang, published in Cronkite news, ”drivers can be fined up to $149 for a first offense and at least $150, but no more than $250,”