Men, Not Women Are The Big Text Offenders

An alarming number of Massachusetts residents are texting while driving and guess who the biggest offenders are?  If you guessed teenaged girls or women in general...WRONG! The state's director of Highway Safety, Jeff Larson tells The Boston Globe, "Adults do the vast amount of texting while driving." Most of those adults appear to be men.

Texting while driving was banned in the Commonwealth in 2010. Kids under 18 are not even allowed to use a cellphone while driving.  State lawmakers are currently debating legislation that would ban all cellphone use while driving  unless hands free technology is employed.

184 people died in "distracted driving" crashes in Massachusetts between 2010 and 2013 according to The Globe. The paper says last year alone more than 6,100 citations were issued to drivers who were using cellphones illegally, up from 3,350 in 2013. The Globe sites statistics that indicate that of the 18 thousand tickets issued between 2010 and last month more than 56 percent were to men.  The paper says people 40 and under received 75 percent of the total tickets issued.

Now that we have shattered just about every myth about who is texting while driving it is time for state lawmakers to toughen the laws on distracted driving and time for you and me toss the phone into the glove compartment until we get to where we are going.