Texting — a safety threat?
This week, the American College of Emergency Physicians issued an alert about the dangers of ... text messaging. Yes, that thing you do with the cell-phone keypad. Apparently, U.S. emergency doctors have reported seeing injuries involving texting pedestrians, bicyclists, rollerbladers and, of course, motorists.
True, two recent deaths have been blamed on moving texters. (Both were in California.) One pedestrian stepped off the curb into the path of a truck; another was hit crossing the street. These are tragic, of course. But there's also been a report of an injury that occurred while a texter was horseback riding and another that occurred while cooking.
Somehow it seems that texting might not be the biggest issue here.
As Newsweek reports: "Most involve scrapes, cuts and sprains from texters who walked into lampposts or walls or tripped over curbs." If you're wondering about some bigger injury and death issues: 30,694 firearm deaths, 32,691 poisoning deaths and 43,667 traffic deaths. There's more: 18,124 homicides and 32,637 suicides. Those numbers are from 2005, courtesy of the National Center for Health Statistics.
Recent comments
The simple fact is that you can't text and keep your eyes on...
Joe | Aug. 2, 2008 at 11:51 a.m.
What a stupid question. The answer is and has been proven to be a...
Bob G | Aug. 2, 2008 at 8:05 a.m.
