The thing about texting and driving is that everyone thinks he or she is a safer texter than everyone else. We have all been warned of the dangers of texting while driving, yet millions of drivers continue to send and read messages on their phones. For some reason, these people feel that they are immune to a distracted driving accident, feeling that they are more "careful" than their texting counterparts, and therefore, able to safely multitask behind the wheel.
As one Colorado woman has learned, texting and driving, even at low speeds, can be dangerous for anyone.
Christina Jahnz admits that she was texting while driving when she crashed into a guard rail in the parking lot of the middle school her daughter attends. She says she dropped off an instrument her daughter left behind, and as she was leaving the parking lot, she decided to send a text to a friend to let her know she was running late.
Jahnz probably thought she was being safe--she was traveling at only approximately 20 miles per hour in the parking lot, and she was sending a voice text rather than keying in the message. However, it only takes a split second for disaster to occur.
For Jahnz, that split second was when she looked down at her phone to make sure the voice text looked okay before sending it. She crashed into the guard rail, and although her speed was relatively low, the force of the impact was enough to send a portion of the rail through her truck, impaling her thigh and buttocks.
In order to remove the woman from her vehicle and to keep her from bleeding to death, firefighters had to leave the metal in her body, cutting it from the guard rail, as they transported her to the hospital.
The woman suffered internal and external injuries and says she "lost count of the stitches after 40." She counts herself lucky, however, saying that doctors told her that if the beam had impaled her just a "little bit the other way," she would have bled to death.
If a person could suffer a near-fatal accident while texting at low speeds in a parking lot, how much more serious are the risks of texting while driving on neighborhood roads, city streets, or highways? Any time you take your eyes off of the road and your mind off of the task of safe driving, you endanger yourself and others.
