YIKES! This video will make you never want to text and drive again
I know we’ve all heard it upside down and backwards by now, but texting and driving is out of this world unsafe — not just for the drivers, but for everyone around them. It is easy to feel like even a quick second without your eyes on the road won’t hurt, but nothing demonstrates the danger quite like this video compilation of actual distracted teenage drivers getting into accidents. Even the teens who look away so fast you barely even notice it yourself end up spiraling into situations so terrifyingly out of control that they’re hard to watch, even knowing that none of them were majorly injured.
What makes this video even more chilling is that all of the teens involved in this footage were a part of a study on teen driving, and were fully aware that there was a camera in their car recording both them and their viewpoint of the road. Yet even knowing that, the teens still texted, talked on phones, and even put on makeup in the car, all of which led to easily avoidable accidents. The AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety released this video at the conclusion of the study to show just how easily it these accidents occur.
A video of this brutally real nature has never been released before, and right on the heels of it comes some disturbing statistics: it turns out that distraction was the main factor in 6 out of 10 moderate-to-severe teen crashes, which is four times as much as researchers initially believed. But really, this video isn’t important for just teens to see, but anyone who drives. It’s a crucially important reminder of just how quickly even the most innocent glance down at your phone can lead to total chaos.
Here is the full video of the accidents below. I’m warning everybody right now, it is extremely chilling to watch.
Is it possible to ever text and drive again after watching that?
(Images from here.)