The recent Virgina Tech Transportation Institute report has brought the hazards of texting while driving back into the spotlight.  Now legislators across the country are talking a nationwide ban.

According to an article by KEN THOMAS, Associated Press, Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., Robert Menendez of New Jersey, Mary Landrieu of Louisiana and Kay Hagan of North Carolina plan to unveil legislation to require states to ban texting or e-mailing while operating a moving vehicle while driving.

"The federal government ought to pass a law banning this dangerous and growing practice to protect the millions of Americans on our nation's roads. It is a matter of public safety," said Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y.

The legislation would require states to ban texting or e-mailing while operating a moving vehicle or lose 25 percent of their annual federal highway funding. It would be patterned after the way the Congress required states to adopt a national drunken driving ban.

The transportation secretary would be required to issue guidelines within six months of the measure being signed into law, and states then would have two years to approve the bans on texting and driving.  The bill would target the activity in a moving vehicle and not prohibit a driver from texting or e-mailing in a stopped car.

Fourteen states and the District of Columbia have already passed laws making texting while driving illegal.

As of July 1^st 2009, Virginia became the 14th state to pass a ban on text messaging while driving.  With good reason.  According to the Virginia Department of Motor Vehicles’ (DMV) Virginia Highway Safety Office, last year 28,395 crashes occurred in the state involving driver distractions, like texting.  Of those, 114 people died and 14,480 were injured.  The law also bans emailing in addition to texting. For more information, visit http://www.dmv.state.va.us

So if you want to send a text message, keep your hands on the wheel, eyes on the road and dictate it!  We’ll transcribe it and send it for you.

Nielsen found that American teenagers sent and received an average of 2,272 text messages per month in the fourth quarter of 2008,— almost 80 messages a day, more than double the average of a year earlier.

So it’s no wonder that texting may be taking a toll on teenagers’ thumbs!  According to an article in the New York Times,  excessive texting can cause the same repetitive stress injuries (RSI) as typing on a keyboard, with texters getting painful cramping in their thumbs.

So before RSI strikes, try sending text messages with Voice Assist.  Use your voice not your thumbs.  To date we’ve found no ill health effects of talking too much!

In a study reported today by Information Week, research group Toluna, surveyed 5000 mobile phone users about texting while driving.  A whopping 83% of the respondents said that texting while driving should be banned.  That should make our roads safer right?  Well not exactly.  Despite these beliefs, 60% of the respondents admitted they did it anyway!

The problem is that texting is such an integral part of our communications, well at least for some of us.  How many times have you found yourself driving in the car and need to send a quick text, or reply to a text? 

Well, the good news is that now you can send texts by speaking them with Voice Assist.  Just call your Voice Assist account, wearing your headset of course, say who you want to text and then dictate the message.  Voice Assist will transcribe what you said and then text it for you. No keying required.

So for all you conflicted mobile phone users, all you need to do is sign up for Voice Assist.

Last year, a study conducted by the Technical University of Braunschweig in Germany looked at the impact of using speech recognition to make calls while driving.

Compared to manual dialing, the study showed that speech input improved the drivers  ability to maintain the ideal car position by 19 percent.  Using Voice dialing was also 40% faster!

So be safer and more productive with Voice Assist’s voice dialing. Just say “Call” followed by the name of the person in your address book.  If you have more than one phone number for the person, let’s call him John Brown, you can say “Call John Brown at work”.