We could say this politely, but why bother: Texting while driving is pretty stupid, as demonstrated by Entourage‘s Kevin Connelly at right. Driving, as an activity, requires both hands on the wheel and your full attention, or you will probably either jack up your car insurance or finally cash in that life insurance policy. It’s gotten widespread coverage on the news, everybody agrees it’s a bad thing, and apparently somewhere between 15 and 30 percent of people on the road still do it.
OK, so it’s not a surprise that 15 to 30 percent of people on the road are terrible drivers, really, but damn.
Not shockingly, it’s teenagers who text while driving the most. In Kansas, only two percent of teens had not texted while driving, although to be fair, Kansas is flat and sparsely populated, so mostly they’re killing wheat. Still, their parents aren’t much better: other studies have found that when adults get pulled over, 5% of them are on the phone. Yes, even after the officer pulled them over.
Equally not shockingly, while teens are banned from using phones in their cars in 30 states, the various traffic authorities are kind of at a loss about what to do about the rest of these people risking killing you because they need to text their friend about dinner plans. Personally, we recommend wedgies, but we’re not sure state governments are ready for such a daring plan.