Report: Texting While Driving Greatly Increases Risk of Typos

Washington, D.C. – A new Princeton University report released Tuesday has dozens of legislators pushing for a federal ban of driving while text messaging. The startling study shows that texting while operating a motor vehicle can result in an alarmingly high rate of typographical errors.

“The logic behind the results is fairly obvious,” said Hal Sutherland, the study’s lead researcher. “This type of multitasking makes it impossible for citizens to keep their eyes on the phone. The grammatical and syntactical results can be absolutely devastating.”

Sutherland

According to the study, driving has a substantial negative effect on a myriad of common texting typos. “You’re 31% more likely to hit “send” before finishing a message when behind the wheel,” says Sutherland, “and 28% more apt to mistakenly leave a number in the middle of a word.”

Other shocking observations include a 52% boost in sending messages to the wrong recipient, a dramatic rise in T9 users sending “in” instead of “go,” and a 100% increase of the word “flggbdaoaug.”

“If the practice of texting while driving goes unchecked, who knows what could happen?” lamented Sutherland. “People will get confused, messages will be misunderstood, wrong directions will be given - if texting and driving continues, people could get hurt.”

The scientific community is abuzz with news of the report. “It’s really shocking,” says Martha Vaughn, famed text-message researcher at Cornell. “It’s the most breakthrough research since our study last June, which showed that drinking while texting causes a 627% upswing in telling your ex-girlfriend you love her at 3 in the morning.”