There are many opinions on the topic of texting and driving. The goal of this blog is to neither refute nor endorse the subject, but instead to explore the effects on vision during texting. It is up to the reader to make a judgement call on the endorsement of texting and driving.

You may not be surprised to hear that texting has replaced drunken driving as the number one cause of deaths in the teenage population. According to Cohen Children’s Medical Center in New York, teen drunken driving has gone down over 50% since 1991 but the number of people texting and driving has skyrocketed. It is illegal to text and drive in the UK, but not in many states in the USA. Some phone companies are launching ad campaigns to discourage texting while driving, and they are reporting a 23 times higher incidence of an accident if you text and drive.

So why does it make you more likely to crash from a visual perspective? The problem lies in distraction from driving. For example, it takes a fast...

And old Creek Indian proverb states, "We warm our hands by the fires we did not build, we drink the water from the wells we did not dig, we eat the fruit of the trees we did not plant, and we stand on the shoulders of giants who have gone before us."

In 1961, the Eye Bank Association of America (EBAA) was formed. This association stewards over 80 eye banks in the US with over 60,000 recipients each year of corneal tissue that restores sight to blind people. Over one million men, women, and children have had vision restored and pain relieved from eye injury or disease. The Eye Bank Association of America is truly a giant whom shoulders that we stand upon today. Their service and foresight into helping patients with blindness is remarkable.

It is important to give back the gift of sight. You may be asking, “how does this affect me?” On the back of your drivers license form there is a box that can be checked for being an organ donor. Many people forego this option because they...