Last week, the Department of Transportation launched its first national advertising campaign ever. What issue compelled them to launch such an expansive campaign, reaching out over TV, radio, and the web? The dangers of distracted driving, of course.

Today marks the start of a crackdown on distracted driving that will run until April 15th. Officers around the country will be on the watch for drivers with their eyes on their phone instead of on the road. In earlier campaigns against texting and driving in California and Delaware, police officers handed out over 16,000 tickets over three waves of enforcement.

But if that’s not enough to motivate you to change those bad habits – after all, 666,000 drivers in the United States are using their phone while driving at any given moment – maybe some of these statistics will:

The average fine in the United States for texting while driving is $100, but some states charge thousands. Alaska knows this is no joke: their highest allowable fine is $10,000.

Parents might not always be setting the best example for their children – 53% of them text while stopped at a red light, and 41% text while driving. For comparison, 60% of teenagers text at red lights and 43% text while driving.

During the average 4.6 seconds it takes to send or read a text message, at 40 miles per hour your vehicle will have traveled the length of 16 cars.

Distracted driving was responsible for 3,000 car crashes, injuring 387,000 people in 2011. That year, over 3,300 people died because of texting and driving.

The message is clear: put your phone down to save lives. If you are a passenger, speak up against the driver’s decision to drive distracted.

It may just be the most important decision you ever make.

To help spread the word about the dangers of texting and driving, please share the infographic with your friends and family, or use this embed code to publish the infographic on your website. Thanks for sharing this important message.

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Biography:

Adrienne Erin is a writer and designer based in Pennsylvania. She designed this infographic for Katherman Briggs & Greenberg in order to help raise awareness about the dangers of texting and driving. You can see more of Adrienne’s work by following @adrienneerin on Twitter or visiting her blog, Design Roast.