If you text while driving you will probably die a horrible death, or at the very least, become a horrible disfigured burn victim shunned by society. What's more is that by doing it, you also risk the lives of pedestrians and others on the road as well. This may sound like hyperbolic exaggeration, but it is advice that nobody should wait to heed until after a closed-casket funeral.

Of over 3 billion cell phone subscribers on earth, over 2.4 billion of them have used cell phones for text messaging, making it one of the most ubiquitous technologies on earth. With about a third as many automobiles on the road across the world, there is a very substantial overlap in users. However, they should never be used simultaneously.

Virtually any use of text messaging, whether it be receiving and reading a text, or typing and sending one, constitutes distracted or even reckless driving, which is a ticketable offense in most states and can result in one's license being revoked in extreme or repeated circumstances. It's common sense really: the attention you devote to your phone while texting is withdrawn from the road, increasing your risk of an accident. And yet, in spite of the obvious risks, surveys have indicated that almost 46% of teens have used cell phones while driving.

Studies and tests have indicated that driving while distracted by reading an email or text while driving adds roughly 36 feet to one's stopping distance. The process of sending a text can add as many as 70 feet to one's stopping distance at 70 miles per hour. Operating a cell phone can add as much as a full second to one's reaction time while driving, which sounds miniscule until you consider that at 70 miles per hour, one second of travel equates to over a hundred feet. In comparison, driving at just over the legal alcohol limit adds only a tenth as much time to one's reaction, or in terms of distance: 4 feet.

In 2008, a passenger train collided head on with a freight train in the Chatsworth district of Los Angeles when the passenger train ran a red stop light entering a single track section of the line that was currently occupied by the freight train, which the train's dispatcher had given to the go ahead. The conductor of the passenger train had been distracted by text messaging when he ran the red light. 25 people were killed in the accident and another 135 injured, many of them critically. Though not specifically a car accident, the train collision nonetheless occurred for reasons that are equally dangerous in an automobile. And whereas a train need only accelerate or decelerate, a driver has full control over the vehicle which is jeopardized when a used cell phone is in play.