'Wait to Text' puts drivers to the test

ALBUQUERQUE (KRQE) - You see it all the time, people texting while they drive. Maybe you have done it

Even if you just look away for a second to text, some reports show, you become more of a danger than a drunk driver.

So, what kind of danger are these texting drivers putting themselves and others in?

Five volunteers went through a texting test using the Albuquerque Police Departments driving course.

While texting, drivers will need to make a curve, go the correct speed and if a cone is knocked down that means they swerved out of their lane.

The results of the test were surprising for each.

“I thought I would do a lot better than I did,” Mandin Danner said. “I thought I was great multi-tasker.”

Danner failed, taking out a whole row of cones.

David Marquez took a curve way too fast. Dohnia Dorman was going too slow and crashed into cones. The absolute worst driver while texting was Nikki Ingram, the only driver who never texts while driving.

“I did horrible. I ran over several rows of cones at once and I was definitely speeding,” Ingram said.

Every driver was either speeding or going way too slow.

“It was tough, and I felt really distracted when I was texting,” Dorman said.

An officer with APD’s traffic unit agrees that texting while driving is dangerous.

“There has been several studies done, that when you take your eyes off the roadway for two seconds, during a six second period you're 300 percent more likely to be involved in a crash,” Officer Andrew Drexler said.

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration said drivers who text are six times more likely to cause a crash than a drunk driver.

When a person texts while driving, the driver's steering capability goes down 91 percent.

“There’s only so much attention you can pay to any particular task,” Drexler said. “When you start
Multiplying those tasks, there's less and less attention available to driving.”

These drivers say they will be putting down their phones when they are in their cars.

”The cones could be a kid that pops up. I definitely need to focus all my attention on driving,” Danner said.

Governor Susana Martinez along with KRQE News 13 and KASA Fox 2 have launched a campaign aimed at the growing number of people who text while driving.

The campaign is called "Wait to Text."

You can pick up color thumb bands here at the KRQE station to remind you to put down your phone while driving.

You can also sign a pledge to stop texting while driving.