You're driving, stopped at a red light, and your text tone goes off. Can you resist a quick reply as the light changes? Or you're in traffic, inching along at the perfect pace to peek at your email. Can you control the urge to respond to a kid, a co-worker or key client, even as traffic starts moving?
You're driving, stopped at a red light, and your text tone goes off. Can you resist a quick reply as the light changes? Or you're in traffic, inching along at the perfect pace to peek at your email. Can you control the urge to respond to a kid, a co-worker or key client, even as traffic starts moving?
That's how it starts for adults, and our influence on others is profound. Seventy-five percent of teens admit to texting and driving, and 50 percent of those say they are emulating their smart-phone addicted parents. Almost 30 percent of traffic accidents are now caused by texting while driving, a statistic AT&T is looking to reduce with its national It Can Wait campaign.
Out of office' drive mode text apps are available for Android and Blackberry on the AT&T website (the iPhone app is in development). The smart phone leader's full-size auto simulator stopped in Lafayette recently and provided this writer with all she needs to take the "no text driving" pledge. Test yourself when the simulator returns in a few months, in cooperation with the Lafayette Parish Sheriff's Office. Or learn more now and take your own pledge at itcanwait.com. Because it can. Really. - Cherry Fisher May