I have finished my second book this
year, A Deadly Wandering by Matt Richtel. I have to say that I really did enjoy
it. For anyone that is a science lover, this book is perfect for you. It
combines a true story with loads of scientific studies to make a great book
that is fun to read. Based off the story of Reggie Shaw, this book discusses
the consequences of distracted driving. Reggie was a 22-year-old living in Utah
who was texting and driving. He swerved into the other lane and hit 2
scientists commuting to work. At first Reggie denied texting and driving but
after some evidence against him, Reggie came clean. Problem was this happened
in 2006, before states passed laws on texting and driving. The judge ultimately
found Reggie guilty of homicide but only served in jail for several weeks
because of the law. Now Reggie is a public speaker who talks about the impact
texting and driving had on his life. The purpose of this book wasn’t to discuss
texting and driving though, the idea was to show how technology is getting
ahead of us. The speed of technology doubles every 2 years and along with this
humans have an addiction to having everything under their own control, so
trying to get a control on technology has become a major time consumer and
distraction. This book was written for all audiences as it pertains to all
drivers.
One of the greatest things Ritchel does in his novel is
appeal to logos. One of my favorite quotes from the book was, “He repeated that
the texting driver faces a six fold crash risk, whereas a driver talking on the
phone faced a four-times increase in likelihood of a crash, which he said was
roughly equivalent to someone who is legally drunk. A drunk driver and a person
on a phone were equally likely to crash, whereas “we’re seeing the risk factor
for accidents when someone is texting exceeds the level when people are legally
drunk.” (Ritchel). I just found this statistic crazy and it expressed all the research
that can be found in this awesome book.
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