哈尔滨市2014高考英语阅读理解、动词短语精讲讲练（二十九）及答案.docVIP

PAGE  哈尔滨市2014高考英语阅读理解、动词短语精讲讲练（29）及答案 Car crashes are the top killer of American teenagers. Most of the crashes result from distracted driving — not paying attention to the road. Ryan Didone was a fifteen-year-old passenger in a car that hit a tree. He was one of the nations more than thirty thousand victims of traffic crashes in 2008. Nearly four thousand deaths, about twelve percent involved drivers age fifteen to twenty. Ryans father, Thomas Didone, is a police captain in Maryland. It was an inexperienced, immature driver driving at night with a carload of kids. He was distracted, he was going too fast, and it ended up causing one death and some seriously injured. He shares the story of his sons death to help educate teens and their families about distracted driving. Jim Jennings from the Allstate Insurance Company says the number one cause of distracted-driving accidents is the mobile phone. He says talking on the phone or reaching for it is like drinking four beers and driving. If youre texting while driving, you are twenty-three times more likely to get into an accident than somebody who isnt. Government and private groups are using public service announcements and events to bring more attention to the problem. For example, the insurance industry recently held a safety event for teen drivers. At first, nineteen-year-old Kevin Schumann easily avoided large, inflatable dolls thrown in front of the car to represent children. He also avoided orange cones representing the edge of the road. Then, as part of the test, he started texting. He hit several cones and at least one doll. Thats what really opened up the experience for me to prove how bad it is to really text and drive. Debbie Pickford of Allstate Insurance says teens are especially at risk from distracted driving —and not just because they lack experience on the roads. According to the research, teens dont really have fully developed brains until theyre twenty-five years old. You put those two things t