Students everywhere should be aware of the dangers of texting while driving. Just last year, it was reported that about 1.3 millions car collisions were due to drivers texting while behind the wheel.

Students should be more considerate of other people driving on the road, instead of focusing on replying to a simple text. Although, some text messages might be important, then you should pull over and then text back, rather than than that no one should ever be texting while driving.

According to textinganddrivingsafety.com, it typically takes about five seconds from you looking at the road and to your phone to reply a text.

That means that if you are traveling at 55 miles per hour, you can drive a whole football field without looking at the road. That statistic should scare you. A driver behind you can potentially be texting and driving and end up crashing onto you on the road.

What’s sad is that about 77 percent of young adults actually are confident that they can safely text while driving while 55 percent of young adult drivers claim it’s easy to text while they drive. Yet, you are 23 times more likely to crash when texting while driving.

Some states have taken this problem very seriously by implementing very strict laws that involve cell phone use while in a moving vehicle. California alone prohibits all drivers from using handheld cell phones as well as prohibit novice drivers from cell phone use. Not to mention that California as well as 39 states plus D.C. prohibit all drivers from text messaging, but still manage to cause over 1.3 million collisions in 2011.

AT&T has actually launched an Android, Blackberry and iPhone app, where the app completely silences your phone and sends an auto-reply to those who are trying to contact you while the app is activated. AT&T has also taken it a step further by creating the “It Can Wait” campaign, where they encourage users to never text and drive.

It is encouraged you as well as family and friends to join AT&T’s pledge not only to potentially save your own life from a possible accident, but to save the lives of people who are at risk from drivers who text.