According to the U.S. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, roughly 303 million people own cell phones and more than 800,000 vehicles are being driven by someone using a mobile device. Teenage texting while driving is a major public policy issue in the United States and creates unsafe conditions on the roads. In the AAA’s Foundation for Traffic Safety’s study, electronics use is the leading cause of teenage distracted driving. Every state has different laws regarding cell phone usage while driving, but in Illinois, hand-held phone use is banned for all drivers. Although teenagers are the most distracted by electronics use behind the wheel, the issue endangers everyone on the roads. With evolving technology and proper legislature,
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Illinois was the seventeenth state to make texting while driving illegal, but as associate director of the Illinois Highway Safety Association, Barbara Harsha, states: “‘passing a law isn’t the solution, it’s only part of it”’. Passing laws is a start to solving this public policy issue, but it is hard for officials to regulate these laws. In Abouk and Adams’s article, they argue that bans on texting while driving encourage drivers to hide their phones while texting, which could be even more dangerous. Monitoring and enforcing these laws is costly and, therefore, may not be as effective as the laws were intended to be. Lastly, it is stated that Abouk and Adam’s research shows that “texting bans are followed by reduced traffic accidents in states with primary enforcement of legislation,” meaning these laws were found …show more content…
Although the use of electronics while driving is illegal, officials need to be stricter about enforcing the law and the state should increase monitoring to decrease the number of distracted driving related incidents on roads. Additionally, all schools in the state of Illinois should be educated on distracted driving to bring awareness to students at a young age. Currently, students have mandatory health classes during fourth, seventh, and tenth grade, which gives educators many opportunities to teach the dangers of texting while driving. Students are allowed to receive their driving permits at the age of 15 and a license at the age of 16, so adding this to tenth grade health class would be relevant and effective. Lastly, the government should make it mandatory for these preventative apps to be downloaded on all electronic devices to prevent texting while driving. The government is already able to control what must be installed on a smartphone, so this would not be difficult to
Illinois was the seventeenth state to make texting while driving illegal, but as associate director of the Illinois Highway Safety Association, Barbara Harsha, states: “‘passing a law isn’t the solution, it’s only part of it”’. Passing laws is a start to solving this public policy issue, but it is hard for officials to regulate these laws. In Abouk and Adams’s article, they argue that bans on texting while driving encourage drivers to hide their phones while texting, which could be even more dangerous. Monitoring and enforcing these laws is costly and, therefore, may not be as effective as the laws were intended to be. Lastly, it is stated that Abouk and Adam’s research shows that “texting bans are followed by reduced traffic accidents in states with primary enforcement of legislation,” meaning these laws were found …show more content…
Although the use of electronics while driving is illegal, officials need to be stricter about enforcing the law and the state should increase monitoring to decrease the number of distracted driving related incidents on roads. Additionally, all schools in the state of Illinois should be educated on distracted driving to bring awareness to students at a young age. Currently, students have mandatory health classes during fourth, seventh, and tenth grade, which gives educators many opportunities to teach the dangers of texting while driving. Students are allowed to receive their driving permits at the age of 15 and a license at the age of 16, so adding this to tenth grade health class would be relevant and effective. Lastly, the government should make it mandatory for these preventative apps to be downloaded on all electronic devices to prevent texting while driving. The government is already able to control what must be installed on a smartphone, so this would not be difficult to