RISKS OF DRIVING DISTRACTIONS

Risks Of Driving Distractions

Chapter 1: Introduction

Background of the Study

It is obvious that technology has had an effect on communications in the most straight forward sense that, for example, we now use the telephone which we didn't use before it was invented. But has the telephone, or more specifically the rising use of the internet and cell phones changed the style of our communications or its content, and if so, why?

It doesn't take much reflection to come up with a few examples like the telegraph or typewriters becoming obsolete, or the fact that letter writing has pretty much seemed to die out. In a random survey conducted for this paper, I found that the participants sent an average of 4.2 letters in the mail over the last year compared to an average of 1993 e-mails in the same time frame. Why? The most common answer I got was efficiency. It's faster to send an e-mail than a letter. I also found that the participants were three times more likely to call a friend or family member who lived within .5 miles of them than walk over and talk to them in person. Again the most common reason was speed, why waste the 5 minutes to walk there when you can just call them? (Strayer and Drew 2007)

Problem of the Study

The problem statement of the study will be after examining the behavior of drivers covering more than 6 million miles of road, the Virginia Tech Transportation Institute concluded that people who send text messages while driving are 23 times more likely to be in a crash (or what they call a near-crash event) than nondistracted drivers.

Hypotheses and Research Questions

The hypotheses and research questions of the study will be:

How has advances and improvements in technology created the need for new laws on text messaging while driving?

How are the risks and ramifications of text messaging while driving impacting society?

Is the need and urgency to text message while driving far more important than the risks and dangers of not texting while driving?

Chapter 2: Literature Review

In just under two years the number of wireless subscribers in the United States has increased from 208 Million in 2005 to 255 Million in 2006. Although 47 Million new cell phone users may seem like a lot, in comparison to the number of text messages sent, it's just a drop in the bucket. With the addition of these 47 Million wireless subscribers, the number of sent text messages jumped a staggering 38 Billion. So unless these new users were texting literally twenty four hours a day seven days a week, it's easy to see that text messaging has become the hot new communication tool, and the fastest growing form of communication in the United States.

With over 90% of our total communication being non verbal, such as body language, paralanguage, touch, eye contact and even tone of voice, It's hard to see how technology has not effected the way we communicate. All of these essential and involuntarily actions are ...