Written by Suzanne Hite, former publications editor serving the technology services sector

Some guy texting walked into me. How dangerous is texting while doing just about anything?

Keep your eyes on what you are doing, except when texting, should be the new rule. It is a huge distraction and increasingly becoming the cause of a lot of accidents. Mobile devices and the need to be permanently online has taken over our lives. The world’s most complex technology is causing the most basic accidents.

Around 1.3 million people are killed globally every year on the roads. This sad number has increased because people think that they can text and drive at the same time. It is not humanly possible to concentrate on two different things at the same time. Since people are not willing to put their phones while driving, new laws have been passed to slow the increasing death toll.

Talking on a mobile phone while driving is banned in 15 states. Texting while driving is banned in 47 states, yet people still do it. In some states, mobile phone use while behind the wheel comes under a secondary law which means the officer will need another reason to stop the vehicle for this offense. The widespread inconsistency in the law from state to state makes it difficult to enforce. Surprisingly, no state completely bans all cell phone use for drivers, but 38 states ban them for novice or teen drivers.

One shocking statistic is that 64% of all road traffic accidents in the U.S. have cell phones involved. That equates to 1.6 million out of 2.5 million accidents per year caused by mobile phones. Driver distraction is a major cause of accidents and 330,000 of them per year are caused by texting. For every car accident in the U.S. one in four is the direct result of the driver texting. The chances of a crash while texting increase 23 times, even if the other driver is at fault. You would have a greater chance of avoiding it, if you had been looking at the road instead of your phone.

Teens are especially high risk, they text more than adults while driving. Eleven teenagers die every day because they were texting while driving, 52% of them talk on the phone while driving and 32% text behind the wheel. The figures are frightening, and the excuses are poor, no text is more important than your own life.

Texting while driving is more dangerous than doing 55mph with a blindfold on. According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, an accident can happen in 4.6 seconds after a driver’s eyes leave the road, while the average text takes 5 seconds to read. Accidents range from drifting into oncoming traffic to driving into lakes and rivers. Running red lights and driving into stationary vehicles or even pedestrians have all been caused by drivers texting. Many are shocked to learn even motorcycle accidents have been caused by drivers texting, says a motorcycle accident lawyer. There have been a number of cases where drivers causing accidents been charged with manslaughter and murder.

The stats are shocking as we have read, the outcome is even more so. Texting and driving do not mix.

The average driver takes his eyes off the road for five seconds per text message, covering an entire football field’s worth of road… Distraction.gov.