Driving and Texting is Bad News

April is Distracted Driving Awareness Month, making it a good time to warn motorists about the dangers of texting and driving.

According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), a texting driver is 23 times more likely to get into a crash than a non-texting driver. Additionally, of those killed in distracted-driving crashes, 995 (18 percent) reported a cellphone as the cause for distraction.

Here are four tips from the NHTSA to help eliminate texting and driving:

• When you’re in the car, put your cellphone in a place that is unreachable and out of sight.
• Turn off audio notifications. If you can’t hear the phone go off, there will be no temptation to respond to text messages.
• Lend your phone to a passenger in the car and have them do the texting if an immediate response is necessary.
• Download an app that will temporarily disable the phone while driving. You can use it again upon arriving at your destination.