“WHERE U AT.”

That’s a text message — a fatal text message sent by Mariah West, 18, of Missouri, just before she veered off a road, smashed into a bridge and died.

Her story and other sad ones like it are told in The Last Text, a sobering, disturbing and tragic 10-minute documentary produced by AT&T and hosted on its website.

The documentary has interviews with a teen driver who killed a bicyclist while he was texting at the wheel; a teen who was devastatingly injured as a passenger in a texting while driving crash; and friends and relatives of teens who perished in such accidents.

It’s perhaps fitting that the focus is on teens, since they tend to text more than others — sometimes thousands of times per month. Such obsession even has been called an addiction.

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In California, it’s against the law to hold a cell phone while driving. Hands-free devices are allowed, but sacrificing a hand from the wheel — and a large chunk of one’s attention from the road  — is forbidden.

Yet Maria Schwarzenegger was photographed yakking by phone as she drove in California last fall, despite a law her husband helped pass. And on Monday, Disney Hannah Montana star Miley Cyrus was stopped by police in North Hollywood as she chatted by phone while driving to a salon for a massage.

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The long Memorial Day weekend ahead is sure to bring car accident misery to Texas roads. But it’s also sure to bring more enforcement of our roadway laws. That’s because Texas Department of Public Safety officers will be out in force. While you play, they will work.

Last year, DPS officers issued more than 8,500 speeding tickets on Memorial Day weekend. They also wrote out 1,937 tickets for failing to wear seat belts and 521 for failing to provide proper child restraints. They also arrested 622 people for drunk driving.

Those kinds of violations again will be targeted for this long weekend, the DPS promises.

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If your teen sons or daughters have a texting habit, and that extends to when they’re driving, they have a significantly higher chance of drying in a car crash. That’s the report of the Texas Transportation Institute, via data provided by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.

The report reveals a study showing that nighttime fatal crashes are increasing at a faster rate for young age groups. That spike is being attributed not just to more night trips by teen drivers, but to teens texting while driving at night.

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Kentucky and Nebraska recently became the 22nd and 23rd states to ban texting while driving, and such laws are pending in most other states. But they don’t include Texas. So soon Texas will be in a minority, with no driving safety law making it illegal to send and read text messages at the wheel of a vehicle.

Such laws are vital because too many Americans aren’t using common sense while operating a motor vehicle. Their distracted driving car crash accidents are slaughtering Americans, with 6,000 traffic fatalities yearly and more than half a million injuries, many of them serious.

Were those texts or calls worth such a price?

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Like a car on freshly-inflated tires, the national momentum to outlaw texting while driving keeps on rolling. Today the U.S. Department of Transportation placed an immediate ban on interstate commercial bus and diesel truck drivers fidgeting with texting gadgets when they should be paying full attention to the road.

After all, they’re getting paid to drive, aren’t they? And, oh yes: If they stop texting, they just might save lives.

In fact, they definitely will, since distracted drivers who text or talk by cell phones kill thousands of Americans each year. So far 20 states have put the brakes on such absurd behavior, with many more states mulling a texting-while-driving ban. And now the DOT has made it illegal — coast to coast — for diesel truck and bus drivers, too.

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Though Texas has failed to join the 19 states so far which ban texting while driving — a no-brainer law if ever there was one — at least some Texas cities are passing such laws, and the latest and largest is our capital city of Austin.

On Thursday Austin City Council unanimously passed a ban on texting while driving. It won’t go into effect until Jan. 2, but in the meantime, the city will wage a campaign to educate the public about it.

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Already, using cell phones or sending text messages has proven to be a cause in many traffic accidents, prompting legislation such as the new California law aimed at dangerous cell-talking drivers. But just getting yackers and texters off roads and out from behind wheels won’t solve everything — not when they’re also yakking and texting while they navigate the nation’s walkways.

That’s why Illinois lawmakers are considering a bill which would impose a misdemeanor and a $25 fine on those who are actively cell-calling or texting while crossing a street.

That may sound silly on the surface, but the fact is, people have died or been seriously injured as a result of paying no attention to watching where they walk. In Britain, it’s even estimated that 6.5 million people have been injured due to texting while walking. (more…)

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