NEWSBEAT REPORTER

Texting, eating, phone calls, even reading are a few things that can distract drivers. With the amount of people on the road today, a driver’s full attention should be directed to the task at hand, namely driving the car.

LSU PD captain Russell Roge says driving is a multi-task function anyway.

“You’ve got to be looking, you’ve got to be operating the steering wheel and the foot pedals with your feet, because your attention is so divided up amongst that, to add another task into it leads to problems,” said Roge.

Roge said a law to ban one distraction from the road, texting, was presented to the legislature but failed because it fell under the category of distracted driving.

“It’s not against the law to text and drive, it’s against the law to be a distracted driver,” he said.

At a speed of 35 miles per hour, if drivers look down for about five seconds to text, you’ve already gone about two hundred fifty-six feet.

Mass communications freshman Joshua Hollins is opposed to texting and driving because it misdirects your focus.

“It’s dangerous because you loose your sensibility as far as what’s going on the road,” Hollins.  “You know, you look up every now and then but you don’t have a full focus of what’s going on the road.”

Captain Roge says he finds more distracted drivers going slow.

“For the most part, I would say at lower speeds but in less traffic areas more people I think are likely to be texting and stuff like that,” said Roge.

In bumper to bumper traffic, there’s no room for error. Texting and driving is a popular distraction that people should steer away from.

The penalty for a distracted driving citation is between $100 and $150 depending on the severity.