Cellphone firms Against Texting and Driving
The nation’s four biggest cellphone firms are teaming up to try to prevent motorists from texting while driving.
AT&T,Verizon Wireless, Sprint and T-Mobile and about 200 other groups are taking part in a multimillion dollar ad campaign that will use AT&T’s “It Can Wait” slogan, according to the Associated Press.
http://news.yahoo.com/big-4-cellphone-carriers-unite-anti-texting-ads-042113131.html
There will be a blitz of public service announcements on TV and radio this summer warning about the dangers of texting and driving.
I’m happy to see this change of heart of the part of cellphone firms. As the AP story pointed out, at one point cellphone companies were lobbying against laws that banned cellphone use by drivers.
Now, with this campaign, they are actually warning consumers about the dangers that can be posed by misuse of their own products.
AT&T’s CEO told AP that the problem of texting and driving is a serious one and that it’s more powerful for the his company and his three rivals to pool their resources and convey one anti-texting message.
There are new government statistics that indicate that driver distraction is not causing the number of vehicular accidents to increase. In fact, such accidents have been on a downward trend nationally.
I truly think this is a perfect of a case where it is better to be safe than sorry. We need to continue to crack down on driver distractions of all kinds, including texting.