Dec 3, 2018 3 min read

A blue sedan zoomed around the double yellow line to pass.

Just ahead, the driver drifted slightly into the berm before correcting the sedan back onto the road. She didn’t hit anyone or anything, but certainly could have.

Her head was slightly bowed, flicking up in split seconds to glance at the road.

At a red light, she lifted a phone up higher, probably responding to a text or an email, or maybe fulfilling a burning desire to know who played Magnum, P.I., in the original version of the series.

The light changed. She sat for a few extra seconds finishing up. The phone was still in her hand as she drove on.

Whatever her reason for using it, it’s improbable that it was an emergency.

Yet, with increased frequency, scenes like these play out on our roads: impatient, distracted drivers too caught up in the self-imposed immediacy that has become life.

To what end?

At 60 mph, a driver travels 88 feet in one second. At a hair than 4 seconds, that’s about the distance of a football field.

Even the most proficient of texters aren’t likely to spend one second on a text, and they shouldn’t be trying – not even with the help of Siri or Alexa or whatever virtual assistant their brand of cellphone uses.

There are few things that truly cannot wait.

Several years ago, Pennsylvania instituted a ban on certain types of cellphone usage while driving. While drivers may talk on the phone and use its GPS capabilities, they cannot use it for texting, emailing or internet searches.

While it’s great to have that law on the books, the most recent figures available from the Administrative Office of Pennsylvania Courts show a continued increase in distracted driving citations.

Greene, Fayette, Washington and Westmoreland have all seen rises in citations related to texting from 2013 to 2017.

In Fayette, there were 33 filed against texting drivers in 2017. It was a sharp rise from 2013 (a 266 percent increase), when nine people were cited. Greene had eight last year, compared to five in 2013, while during those same years, Washington jumped from 39 to 66, and Westmoreland from 33 to 53.

Compared to state distracted driving data, drivers in Greene, Washington and Westmoreland are doing way better. The AOPC reported a 172 percent increase in texting-related citations across the state

Not surprisingly, court statistics showed that the bulk of distracted driving citations are filed against those who grew up with the technology. Motorists in their 20s and 30s were the recipients of 65 percent of the citations.

To teenagers and younger adults, those who grew up before everyone had a cellphone must seem like dinosaurs. When someone called, they left a message on a physical answering machine that was accessible at home. Back in the Stone Age, you pushed a button. You listened to their message. You called them back.

Sometimes, hours passed before that happened.

When a friend wanted to know how much longer it would take to get to a meeting point, they got that answer precisely when we arrived.

Waiting harmed no one then, and it harms no one now.

Traveling along in a 4,000-plus pound vehicle, moving a football field’s length every 4 seconds, the stakes are just too high – for everyone on the road.