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Editorial: Parents who text while drive set poor example to kids

Published: Thursday, May 24, 2012, 6:00 AM
ae texting 2.jpgTexting while driving is illegal in Massachusetts. So how come parents sometimes do it right in front of their children?

Imagine a parent, a child or two in the car with him, rocketing down the highway, taking a few slugs from a bottle of Jack Daniel’s as he goes.

It’s unthinkable, really. It’s a picture from a horror film, a graphic lesson in how not to be a parent.

No one in his right mind would risk his children’s lives by behaving in such a foolhardy and dangerous way. To say nothing of setting an astonishingly foul example.

So why then do people routinely careen down the road, the kids in the car, with their eyes fixed on their smartphones, sending and receiving text messages as though they were relaxing in the recliner at home?

Because the message might be important, right? It could be the boss. Or a change in dinner plans. Or fan mail from some flounder.

And so drivers routinely reach for the phone to take a look, taking their eyes off the road. It’s dangerous, foolhardy in the extreme – and has got to stop.

Not only does texting while driving put the driver, his passengers and others on the road at risk, there’s new evidence showing that kids whose parents text while driving are more likely to do the same once they are behind the wheel themselves.

Text as I say and not as I text?

Everyone has seen drivers whose attention is clearly not on the road as they focus on their phone. They weave across the dividing line. They go too slow, then too fast, fail to brake until the last second. It’s terrible. And terribly dangerous. And when these people are doing it with their kids in the car, it is unconscionable.

Texting motorists with kids who observe their wayward ways are unconsciously training a new generation of badly behaved and dangerous drivers.

Related topics: editorials, texting

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