Writing Assignment On The Extent Of Texting And Driving
For this writing scenario, you are required to take your research idea from the annotated bibliography you developed in Module 6 and turn it into a formal paper for a small journal in your field. Your colleagues were so interested in your research that they encouraged you to try to find a way to publish it. Your assignment is to develop a short, thesis-based research essay written in a formal style, appropriate for an academic setting.
Your research essay should be 1000 to 1250 words, include a strong thesis, and incorporate three to five scholarly sources. Your goal is to use your research topic from Module 6 and develop it into an interesting and engaging essay that is both informative and persuasive about the issue you chose for your research topic.
See the Course Calendar for the due date.
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Turnitin
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Once submitted, your assignment will be evaluated by Turnitin® automatically. You will be able to view an Originality Report within minutes of your first submission that will show how much of your work has been identified as similar too other sources such as websites, textbooks, or other student papers. Use your Originality Report as a learning tool to identify areas of your assignment that you may not have cited appropriately. You may resubmit your assignment through this dropbox as many times as you need to check to see if you have made improvements, until the due date of the assignment. However, once you have made your first submission, you will need to wait 24 hours after each subsequent submission to receive a new Originality Report. Plan accordingly as you draft your assignment. Once the due date has passed, your assignment submission will be considered final.
Evaluation
This assignment will be graded using the Writing Rubric located on the Course Rubrics page within the Start Here section of the course. Please review the rubric prior to beginning your work so that you ensure your submission meets the criteria in place for this assignment. This assignment is worth 10% of your final course grade.
Texting and Driving
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Texting and Driving
The current accidents and crashes of the automobiles emanate from texting while driving. Many drivers think to assume that it is safe to type on their phones while on wheels while others do not care about the impending temper due to the act of texting while driving. Many people including drivers appreciate phone apps such as Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp texting and reading messages. The improvement in phone technology especially the Smartphones have enabled many people to shift from phone conversation to delivering information through text messages. The current statistics indicate that fatal accidents and car crashes that involve teenagers of between 16 and 19 years are at 21 percent due to the use of cell phones near roads or while driving. Besides, the figure is anticipated to increase by 4 percent on a yearly basis if better ways are not put in place to curb the habit. On the same note, about a fifth of the adult drivers in the USA alone are using text messages while driving (National Center for Statistics and Analysis, 2017). Use of cell phone for texting while driving or walking on the road is distracting hence leads to accidents and death. The present research essay presents the current extent of texting and driving its impacts and the laid out strategies in place to curb the menace.
The extent of Texting and Driving
The presence of Smartphone technology continues to make people stay connected at all times. Currently, the total number of people who use phones while driving is almost 50 percent. Such activities happen irrespective of the education of drivers on dangers of distracted driving. Besides, most teenagers of above 16 years love texting while driving and have also noticed drivers who text while behind the wheels. Therefore, at any given moment of the day around the globe, more than 600,000 drivers attempt to use phones while driving an automobile. However, the usage of such Smartphones poses high safety risks since drivers have divided attention or lose concentration while operating at the same time texting, checking messages, emails and receiving phone calls among others (Schroeder, Meyers & Kostuniuk, 2013).
Most drivers who engage in texting while driving note the urge to communicate and are unable to turn off their phones or other communication devices. Besides, the drives leave their phones on for emergency purposes as well as for GPS functions. The positive features on Smartphones such as the location of gas stations, restaurants, and other essential business locations increase the chances of such drivers to engage in texting while driving. Separately, the current new vehicles offer large computer screens with dashboards for GPS and phone interconnection platforms. Therefore, such new technologies contribute to indulgence on texting and driving (Cell Phone & Texting Accident Statistics, 2012).
Impacts of Texting While Driving
The National Safety Council notes that the use of cell phone while driving is responsible for 1.6 million crashes on a yearly basis with 330, 000 injuries due to accidents caused when texting while driving. In the USA alone about one out of four car accidents occur due to texting and driving. Furthermore, the research indicates that crashes are arising from texting while driving is six folds higher than accidents that occur due to driving when drunk. Separately, the activity results in 400 percent loss of time when eyes are off the road. In 2013 alone the USA lost 3,154 people in accidents due to distractions caused by texting and driving while 424, 000 people received injuries in the crashes involving distracted drivers. Regarding the teenage statistics, about 10 percent of teenage drivers of 15 and 19 years engaged in fatal accidents due to distractions at the time of such crashes (Schroeder, Meyers & Kostuniuk, 2013).
Caird et al. (2014) researched a meta-analysis of the effects of texting on driving. According to the authors, texting and driving are a factor that causes many incidences of accidents and fatalities in different nations. The authors used text-messaging as an independent variable coded as reading, typing, and combination of both. On the other ha...