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Florida driver learns why texting and driving is a very bad idea

A Florida man found out the hard way that it's not a good idea to text while driving.

Don't text and drive.

A terrifying crash in Fort Myers, Florida, was recently captured by an officer's dash cam.

The cause: texting while driving.

On January 4, Officer Ivan Moorer of the Fort Myers Police Department started trailing a 2004 Pontiac Grand Am after he noticed it swerving erratically.

The driver, Michael James Woody Jr., 23, wasn't drunk. He was just texting.

After Woody made "the world's worst right turn," he accelerated across the lane and onto the sidewalk, striking a guardrail, bus stop sign and tree, before flipping over, according to the crash report.

The video shows a shaken-up Woody crawling out the window of the overturned car.

[ Related: Man's 'I need to quit texting' text ends with car accident ]

Woody, who was promptly cited for both careless driving and texting while driving, survived the crash uninjured.

Here's hoping he's learned his lesson.

According to The Canadian Automobile Association, texting drivers are 23 times more likely to be in an accident or a "near-crash event" than drivers who are paying attention to the road.

"Distracted driving has always a major factor in collisions, but it's been a result of electronic technology that has really brought it to the forefront," Ontario Provincial Police Sgt. Pierre Chamberland told CBC News last August.

[ Related: Adults text more than teens while driving ]

A 2011 study found that drivers' reaction times double when texting — and that included just reading texts.

"The act of reading and writing a text message are equally impairing and equally dangerous," said one of the study's authors.

So if you're tempted to just read texts from a phone on your lap — "It's hands-free, right?" — don't. Crotches kill.

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