Texas launches "Talk. Text. Crash." campaign to encourage safer driving

As I mentioned earlier this week, April is National Distracted Driving Awareness Month.  And last Wednesday the Texas Department of Transportation kicked off their April efforts with a rally on the steps of the state Capitol and a terrific new safe driving campaign called "Talk. Text. Crash."

Motorcycle
Click here to listen to one of Texas DOT's new radio public service ads

As Texas DOT Traffic Safety Coordinator Karen Peoples said, "We're trying to get the great people of our state to limit their distractions.  Whenever you're behind the wheel, make arriving safely at your destination your number one priority."

The rally featured several family members speaking on behalf of  12 loved ones who have been killed in distracted driving crashes.  One of the victims remembered last week was Alex Brown, whose tragic story is featured in our "Faces of Distracted Driving" series.

Another of the speakers, Jennifer Smith, is the founder of FocusDriven, a national advocacy group working to end distracted driving.  The story of Jennifer's mother, Linda Doyle, will also be featured in an upcoming "Faces of Distracted Driving" video.

The bold public education campaign to encourage Texans to put down their cell phones while driving is built around a simple message: "You talk, you text; you crash."

And that's exactly what happens.  Driving requires tremendous coordination of your eyes, ears, hands, feet, and brain; any activity that distracts from that coordination is just plain dangerous.  Texting or talking on a cell phone while driving takes your attention from the road and increases your chances of crashing.

More than one of the victims remembered last week was killed when a driver had hundreds of feet of visibility ahead, did not see a stop sign or red light, and plowed directly into another vehicle without ever even tapping the brakes.  Several others were killed when a distracted driver crossed into their lane and struck their vehicle head-on, again without braking.

The crash statistics from Texas also demonstrate this danger. Nearly one in every four Texas crashes involves driver distraction.  In 2009 alone, over 100,000 vehicles in Texas were involved in crashes where driver distraction was cited. Sadly, 408 of those crashes were fatal.

I welcome the efforts of the Texas DOT.  I thank all of the speakers who bravely told their stories last week.  And I urge everyone--whether you're behind the wheel in Texas or anywhere else--to hang up and drive safely.

 

Comments

[S. Taylor]

My name is Scott Taylor and I am the Chief Information Officer for SAFECELLapp. We are a Houston based software developer of the Android, BlackBerry, and iPhone platforms.Our applications are the most advanced distracted driver software solutions on the market to address this growing issue. Our applications are designed to provide companies, parents, and individuals with a definitive oversight method to insure that they are adhering to the wireless policies/laws via a robust reporting capability. Our applications provide insurance carriers, companies, and individuals a way to earn rewards for adhering to implemented laws while limiting the liability to the carriers. Since our launch in October 2010 our users have:

* Taken over 47,000 individual trips since our launch on October 4th 2010.
* Safecellapp has captured over 14.5 million way-points during these trips.
* They have driven over 1.4 million miles in total.
* With our reporting capabilities we can definitively confirm that they have driven while not using their cellphones over 1,342,650 miles safely!
* We can show that our users are adhering to the applicable cellular laws in their locations 97% of the time.

Our SAFECELLapp was recently nominated as one of the top 20 applications in the Social Good category at the AT&T Open Call at CTIA Wireless in Orlando. No other distracted driving application has this ability. We are very interested in working with Texans in providing them with a method of curving the distracted driving issue for both teenage and adult drivers. If there is any additional information that I could provide please let me know.

Please feel free to visit our website for additional information or questions you may have.

[Darlene Gleffe]

Hang up and Drive. No cell Phones behind the wheel of a deadly weapon!!!!!!!!!

[Diane Johnson]

EVERY life saved is worth ANY action taken 2 STOP 100% PREVENTABLE CRASHES! I encourage use of "Turn OFF Cell B/4 Driving!" safety reminder stickers:

Print 720 FREE "Turn Off Cell B/4 Driving" safety reminder stickers (to put on cells &/or drivers' visors; to wear & to SHARE individually, in strips of 5 or 10, or pages of 30; &/or to "seal" snail mail) + 30 site direction stickers so others can get their own 720 on Avery 5260 labels @

http://myplace.frontier.com/~DriveSafely/

The “Turn Off Cell B/4 Driving!” safety reminder stickers site has already had over 379 hits (as of 2/1/11) from as far away as Canada, Mexico, United Kingdom, South Africa, Switzerland, Puerto Rico, India, Indonesia, France, Australia, Brazil, the Philippines, Sweden, & Bolivia!!

24 pages x 30 labels = 720 x 379 = 272,880 reminder stickers + 1 page x 30 x 379 = 11,370 site directions so MORE people will get their OWN: 11,370 x 720 = 8,186,400 + of course, Ur 272,880 = 8,459,280!!!... IMAGINE!!!!...

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[Phoenix Injury]

This is an amazing campaign. I think that this is great to get the message across to drivers to not use their cellphones while driving.