Safety advocates preparing to combat distracted driving
On behalf of of Frederick & Hagle posted in Car Accidents on Thursday, May 30, 2013.
It is illegal to drive drunk in Illinois. Not only would a conviction on drunk driving charges yield serious criminal consequences, but driving drunk also puts innocent lives at risk. Drivers across Illinois for the most part understand the implications and consequences of drunk driving.
It is illegal to text while driving in Illinois. Offenders can be ticketed, but far scarier is that every day, innocent victims are killed by distracted drivers across the nation. Many drivers seem to be aware that texting while driving is dangerous but they fail to grasp the magnitude of this distraction.
In fact, the rate of teenage fatalities due to distracted driving recently eclipsed the rate of teenage fatalities due to drunk driving. It is imperative that residents in Champaign and elsewhere across Illinois begin to change their attitude toward texting while driving.
Just as no driver is a good drunk driver, no driver is a good distracted driver. The community as a whole needs to work together to put the phones down. The director of the Harvard School of Public Health was instrumental in raising awareness surrounding drunk driving and using designated drivers a few decades ago.
As drunk driving accident rates are beginning to drop, the director is now preparing to tackle a new front: distracted driving. He says that one of the most fundamental ways to drive down the danger is to increase public awareness with shifting attitudes. He aims to launch a comprehensive campaign through several outlets to dissuade drivers from texting and other distractions.
Just as no drink is worth the life of another human, no text is worth the life of another victim.
Source: UPI.com, “‘Designated driver’ campaign model for distracted driving,” May 24, 2013
