There are few things more dangerous than a texting driver. Teens are even more dangerous when it comes to this than adults because they don’t have any experience on their side. When someone is texting and driving, they put your life, their life, and the lives of everyone on the road in danger. You need to have a plan for when this happens so that you can protect yourself. Hopefully that doesn’t mean losing a friend. Use some of the options below to help everyone be safe on the road and reduce your chances of issues with your friends.
Discuss it Up Front
Before you ever get in a vehicle with someone for the first time, let them know that you refuse to ride with anyone that uses their phone while driving. Explain that you have seen too many tragedies to become a statistic and make sure they are okay with that. If someone breaks your trust, be ready to never ride with them again.
Blame Your Parents
This option is particularly easy to do if you live in a small town. All you have to do is tell your friends that if your parents catch you in a car with someone who is texting and driving, you won’t be able to ride with them anymore. Small towns are notorious for being in everyone else’s business so this is an easy enough excuse to make,
Ask Politely
Have a conversation with your friend before you even get in the car. Talk about the dangers of texting and driving and how you don’t want to subject yourself to them. Make sure your friends know how you feel about it and that there is a real danger behind it. You might even offer to answer their phone or drive yourself if they prefer to text. Ask them to use some common sense and make the right choice.
Request the Phone
If your friend is texting while driving and you are embarrassed to ask them to stop, just ask to see their phone. Make some excuse. Say you want to take selfies. Say you want to text your parents and your phone is dead. Say you want to play a game on their phone. Say you want to do anything that it takes to get the phone out of their hands and into yours. In fact, say that you want to call for a ride who will drive you where you need to go without putting your life in danger.
Make a Game of It
Texting and driving is a serious mistake, but your friend may not take it seriously. Get creative about it and challenge them to see how long they can go without texting. Turn this into a discussion of all the things you miss out on while texting, like what’s going on on the road in front of you. You might also mention things like body language and inflection.
In short, do whatever it takes to safely get your friend to stop texting and driving. You might fear that you are risking your friendship, but would you rather risk your lives and the lives of everyone on the road instead? There is no text that is so important it can’t wait until you are safely stopped. If your friend has any questions about that, have them consult one of the many police reports concerning deaths from texting and driving.
A very important issue, hopefully good friends won’t put eachother in that position.
Thank you for the tips! My son just turned 16 and now has his license. I worry constantly. I especially like your tip about asking them for the phone. Anything can wait until they get to their destination.
Challenging a friend through a game is most recommended because teens are in an age where they think like everything is not yet as serious as life is.
Thanks for the tips! 🙂
Great advice that doesn’t seem too pushy but works!
Not gonna lie, but I’d smack them upside the head.
I have some serious road rage, I wouldn’t be nice about it
This is so important. I hope people start realizing how very dangerous it is.
Great tips! I really like the “blame”, it takes the pressure of them to speak up!
Yes, seriously important list! Thank you. Blame the parents is very useful. Thank you for this post.
I think the challenge would really help. It’s also important to be honest that you won’t be comfortable riding with someone who is texting while driving.
This is a very good message to get across. I see it all the time kids and adults alike driving while texting. It is scary and so dangerous but people just don’t seem to get it. Thanks for sharing this it is so important.
Those are some great tips. I have a long time before my daughter is a teen but will hold on to these tips.
this is a really bad issue.. kids cannot take the phones out of their hands.. I would request the phone in this case and give it back when we stop.
Great advice. A friend should care about your safety enough to listen to your request.
This is so scary, great to give tips on what to do.
Call the cops! That will teach them!
Too many people take texting and driving lightly. Great Ideas!
I have one teen that drives and one learning how to drive. This is a very timely post. I will ask them to read it. Thank you for sharing.
This is just the worst. Most people can’t drive let alone with the phone!
I really like this post. I’m going to need this in here in a few months. This has become such a big problem. Even though it is illegal to talk and text on your phones or in my state anyways. I still see the police and other public figures doing it.
I think everyone should know that everyone should not text and drive
Great tips, my kids are not old enough for that but I know my son fusses at me when I text at a red light.
I never text while driving it drives me crazy thank you for sharing!!
I would absolutely say something. That’s 100% not ok with me. Endangering themselves is bad enough, but endangering others is unacceptable.
I always tell the kids to blame me if they want to, when they’re stressing the rules. Better safe than sorry always!
Tell them not to, either they will listen or not, they’re risking their own life and who ever is in the car at that point. I tell it to my husband all the time, but he said, it’s a stupid rule.. so he’ll just learn the hard way..
These are great tips. I’ll never forget in college we were all in my friends car. She was texting and driving and one of our other friends just snatched the phone out of her hand.
Great ideas for young drivers or riders. Thanks for sharing.
These are really great tips! The “blame the parents” one is funny. I find that it’s really important to speak up if somebody is endangering your life.
Great tips and great theme! This is a serious problem and I’m glad to see a post thinking about from teens point of view!
Doing anything other than driving is a big no no! Scary to know that there are so many people that are still texting and driving. My son as a way to go before I have to worry about him texting and driving but when the times comes I will make it clear how important it is NOT to get in a car with anyone doing such things!
This is a very important list! Thanks for sharing!
This is an amazing list. Sending to my teen son right now!