Sara Craft of Wayzata recently had a frank, here's-the-deal chat with her two teenage kids. It had nothing to do with the birds and the bees.
The topic: texting while driving.
"I said, 'If you're not being abducted and not on fire, I might not be able to respond right away,'" Craft said. "I told them, 'If you're wanting to know if it's OK for you to go to Max's house, that can wait 5 or 10 minutes.'"
But many adults 18 and over neither preach nor practice the "just say no" approach when it comes to texting while driving. A recent Pew Research Center study showed that virtually the same percentage of adults (27 percent) as 16- and 17-year-olds (26 percent) have sent or read texts while driving.
What makes texting while driving -- illegal in Minnesota and 29 other states -- especially dangerous is that it entails all three aspects of distracted driving: visual, manual and cognitive. Behind-the-wheel texters are conducting a dangerous triple juggling act, simultaneously reading and watching the road; typing and steering; paying proper attention to other drivers and their communiqués.
"You're putting all three together," said Jean Ryan, traffic safety coordinator of the state's Office of Traffic Safety (OTS). "There's no doubt in anybody's mind that you're putting everybody on the roadway in danger."
Distracted driving predates the Model T -- Ryan notes that reading a map or a newspaper while driving is just as distracting -- but modern technology has upped the ante considerably. According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), use of handheld devices while driving increased by 50 percent from 2002 to 2008.
The NHTSA attributed more than 5,800 deaths in 2008 to distracted driving. In Minnesota, the OTS estimates distracted or inattentive driving is a factor in one in four crashes, resulting in about 20,000 crashes, 70 deaths and 350 serious injuries a year. (The OTS' Nathan Bowie said these statistics have not been broken down by age.)
Britain's Transport Research Laboratory found texting more dangerous than substance use: Text messaging lowered drivers' reaction time by 35 percent, while people high on marijuana slowed down 21 percent and those who were legally drunk slowed down by 12 percent.
Cell phone use is almost as harmful. A 2006 University of Utah study found equal impairment among drivers using cell phones and those with 0.08 percent alcohol levels in their blood.
Again, adults surpass younger drivers: The Pew Research study indicates 61 percent of all U.S. adults talk on the phone while driving, compared with 43 percent of all 16- and 17-year-olds.
Getting the word out
Many of the young phone yakkers are breaking a Minnesota law that bans cell phone use among under-18 drivers for their first year with a license. Another, more recent Minnesota law made it illegal for all drivers to read, compose or send texts and e-mails, or to access the Internet on a wireless device while their vehicle is in motion or part of traffic.
But state officials, with some help from AAA, are doing more than that. Together they have distributed 75,000 copies of the Minnesota Safety Council's new traffic safety guide, with distracted driving as a component. (Download it at www.minnesotasafetycouncil.org/traffic/getthere.pdf.)
Next week, the Office of Traffic Safety will conduct an educational and enforcement campaign on texting, with print, radio and TV ads (the latter in collaboration with AT&T) and a major enforcement push on Thursday.
"We're asking officers at stops throughout the week to explain the texting law," Bowie said.
Teens better prepared
So far, teenagers have gotten more education on the topic than adults, primarily through joint efforts involving schools, AAA and the Minnesota Safety Council.
Last spring, the student bodies at Minneapolis North and Bloomington Jefferson high schools watched as their peers worked their way through a distracted-driving course. And Prior Lake High has been one of many statewide stops for the Minnesota/Iowa AAA's two driving simulators, which can test for distractions. Driver's ed classes also stress the pitfalls of texting while driving and other distractions.
"There are so many programs in the schools now about this," Craft said. "Younger kids are much more in tune with the ramifications of texting or talking on the phone than people my age."
Craft does talk on her cell phone while driving, but when incoming texts arrive, she said she ignores them until she gets to her destination or finds "a large parking lot -- not the shoulder on 394" if she's on a longer drive. But she added that she sees "tons of people texting while driving" around the Twin Cities.
Not good, says the OTS' Ryan: "People of all ages need to eliminate all distractions from their driving and concentrate on the road."
Minnetonka's Karl Rigelman agrees. He won't answer his two teenage daughters' text messages while driving.
"I really think we should follow New York's lead in making all communications while driving illegal," he said, "save for the occasional hand or finger gesture, of course."
Bill Ward • 612-673-7643
