Texting or anything else that distracts from driving can endanger your life and the lives of those around you. Patrolman for the Millcreek Police Department Nathan Regelmann said what feels like only a short while is actually a lot of distance.

"On average, you'll take your eyes off the road for approximately five seconds to look at your phone. Within that amount of time if you're going 55 miles per hour, you're going to travel a whole football field's length blind," Regelmann said

Regelmann said visual distractions take your eyes off the road, manual distractions take your hands off the wheel and cognitive distracted driving is when you start to daydream. Any of these can cause a crash or driving off the road.

"The biggest thing you want to do if you need to answer that text, take a bite of your sandwich -- take a few seconds -- pull over to the side of the road. It's better to take a few seconds out of your day then to ruin your life or that of someone else’s," Regelmann said.

In 2022, distracted driving resulted in over 3000 fatalities nationwide.    

"That's about 9 lives per day and that's 9 lives too many. Right here in Erie County specifically there was about 323 distracted driving crashes and that led to 3 fatalities, which again, is 3 too many. So we don’t want to see anyone lose their lives to something that is 100 percent preventable,” Spokesperson for AAA East Central Tiffany Stanley said. 

Stanley said distracted driving impacts everyone, not just those behind the wheel. 

“Distracted driving does affect everyone not only on the roads, but people who are pedestrians and bicyclist. There are so many people that are impacted by distracted driving, and it’s just really important that we do the best that we can to keep our roads safe,” Stanley said.