April is the month that brings May flowers, but more importantly it is also Distracted Driving Awareness Month! As April comes to a close let's try to keep these statistics in mind and eliminate distracted driving the rest of the 11 months of the year!

We all know that distracted driving has become common place, but did you know how damaging it can really be? Here are some alarming statistics that illustrate the outcomes:

• Text messaging while driving makes you 23 times more likely to be involved in a crash.
• Sending or receiving text will keep your eyes off the road for about 4.6 seconds. In that amount of time traveling at 55mph you will have traveled the length of a football.
• Using your cell phone while driving reduces the amount of brain activity needed to drive by 37%.
• Reports from 2009 show that 5,474 people were killed in car accidents that involved a distracted driver and about 448,000 people were injured.

(Official US Government Website for Distracted Driving,

http://www.distraction.gov/stats-research-laws/facts-and-statistics.html ).
 

Distracted driving has become such an issue that 37 states, the District of Columbia and Guam have banned texting all together. Some have a primary law, which means the driver can be ticketed for distracted driving alone, no other violation is required, while other states have a secondary law, where the driver must first commit another  violation in addition to the distracted driving. To find out the law in your state visit: http://www.distraction.gov/stats-research-laws/state-laws.html