I believe that texting while driving should be illegal. I believe this for many reasons.

One reason I think this is because you can travel very far when your attention is averted to your phone, even though typing that text may take mere seconds. Here is some information to support that reason:

	Sample text: Hey how r u doing?
# of seconds to type the message	3 seconds
# of seconds to type each word	0.6 seconds
# of seconds to type each character	0.157894736 seconds

	Car in Residential	Car on Highway
Miles per hour	35	65
Miles per minute (feet per minute)	0.583 (3080)	1.083 (5720)
Miles per second (feet per second)	0.01 (51.3)	0.018 (95.3)

	Residential Car (35 mph)	Highway Car (65 mph)
Distance driven while texting sample text	153.9 ft.	285.9 ft.
Time taken to cross a football field (how many football fields crossed while typing sample text)	5.848 seconds (0.513 football fields)	3.148 (0.953)

So, if you happened to text and drive, you could travel halfway across a football field by the time you had finished your text. That may only be about 3 seconds where you aren’t paying attention to the road, but in that short amount of time you could have to turn, or a person, car, or animal may get out in front of your car. You wouldn’t be able to notice these obstacles until it was a bit too late.

Another reason why you should never text while driving is that, as I had briefly mentioned earlier, “obstacles” could appear in front of your car and you wouldn’t notice them. These obstacles would occur more often in a residential neighborhood rather than on a highway. On a residential road, people walk around a bit more and are often close to the road. Also, the road may turn, and you wouldn’t know it until you were on the curb. Cars are traveling both directions on a residential road, unlike a highway, where the two directions are on separate roads. Even though texting and driving is dangerous, no matter the circumstances, it is even more dangerous on a residential road, where there are more things you are likely to hit when you aren’t paying attention.

A third reason why texting and driving should be illegal is that it is a major cause of death. In 2010, 30% of American teens were killed by a texting and driving related accident. Unlike teens, 1.2% of non-teens are killed in a texting and driving related accident. Out of that 30% or 1.2%, 40% of those deaths weren’t even the driver. Even if the driver is for some reason OK with risking an accident and texts while driving, they could still be risking the lives of their passengers or the pedestrians around the car.

Texting and driving should be punished. A fine would help prevent people from doing this. People would want to text while driving because they couldn’t wait to respond to the person later. They could easily avoid the urge to respond if they knew there was a fine if they did text. Even if they absolutely HAD to respond, they should pull over to the side of the road and then respond. You should text OR drive, not text AND drive. As a society we should aslo try to not text someone while they may be driving, so they wouldn’t feel the need to start texting in the first place.