Posted September 4, 2012 / Lee

Guest Blogger: Lee of My Sentiment ExactLee

Well, as I try to type this post out on my cell phone while I’m driving, changing the radio station, giving Spencer a snack and swatting at Jason I would have to say NOT AT ALL! Obviously I’m exaggerating, but I will say I’ve seen acrobatics about this complicated done by other parents driving down the road. It’s nothing short of the Olympics in my humble opinion.

We have to ask ourselves, if we are teaching our children such a bad habit with the technology we have in our hands today, how bad will the habit be when they can drive? And how much more elaborate will the technology be?

I don’t know about you, but I worry about my children, ages 4 and 7, going outside to ride their bikes. The thought of them setting out in a vehicle on the open road isn’t really one I care to entertain at this time in my life. Drunk driving used to be the scariest thing to worry about but I’m not sure that is the case anymore.

This article from the New York Times dated June 2009, the most recent year data has been released about distracted driving statistics, states that distracted driving is actually more dangerous than drunk driving.

Another article by CNBC on the topic explains that even worse, distracted driving doesn’t have a stigma attached to it the way drunk driving does. Drunk driving is a social humiliation that we are warned against from a young age. If you drink and get behind a wheel, you could kill someone. But everyone checks their email in traffic. Even mom and dad. Especially mom and dad.

So how many of our children are going to need to die in accidents before we place a social stigma on texting, checking email and posting to Facebook while we drive down the road? Sure, we all think we can handle distracted driving. We have it under control, we’re just going a short distance and it’ll be fine. To me, this all sounds eerily familiar.