Persuasive Speech: Don't Text and Drive

Title: Why you should not text and drive

Specific purpose: To persuade drivers and future drivers to not text while driving

Central Idea: To highlight the dangers of texting while driving and giving solutions to prevent such dangers

Attention step

1. Imagine this: You have a date scheduled with your partner, but you over slept. You wake up all panicky, you are already an hour late. You do not want your partner to think you stood her/him up so you did not even bother to change your clothes or fix your hair. You  rush to the car. As you are driving you decide to send a text to let your partner know you did not forget and you are on your way… little did you know you were on your way to the hospital, It turns out that in those two seconds when you were looking at your cell phone you did not see the stop sign, let alone the minivan with the three young children.  With three young children now dead and the father hospitalized, while you are looking at twenty five years to life in prison. (attention getter).
2. I know this is hard to imagine. But unfortunately this is a scenario that happens quite frequently and it could happen to anyone including you. (connect with audience)
3. In my speech I will discuss the dangers of cell phone use while texting and driving, scary statistics, and the preventive measures used to ensure that you do not ruin your life, along with the lives of others for a silly text message.(focus-enforce the direction of your speech )

Need

A. In the past few years the number of cell phone users has dramatically increased. Along with this sudden burst, comes a corresponding effect of cell phone use in cars. Using your cell phone while driving is a very dangerous and hazardous action. Cell phones are a main distraction that causes the driver’s attention to be shifted away from the road and the world around them, to a tiny screen. A quick glance can cause a devastating outcome, in which your surroundings are forgotten and focus lost. Sending or receiving a text distracts the driver for an average of 4.6 seconds. This is the same as driving 55 mph down an entire football field, blind.

B. According to Duane Ellis, General Manager of the Jamaica Automobile Association (JAA) “the increased use of cell phone messaging services has contributed to a rise in the number of drivers who will risk multitask texting and driving . This activity is particularly dangerous, because it fully engages the individual and is a cognitive, manual and visual distraction, which completely disrupts the driver's attention to the road and awareness of the environment.”

C. Testimony: I am personally guilty of texting and driving until one day when I almost had an accident.  I never did it again. Just to show how distractions are very dangerous, I lost a friend over the weekend because she was probably not focused on the road and hit a curb and ended up in another vehicle, but do not make the same mistake, you can prevent it.