TJ Partners provides an educational event to promote safe driving habits.
Artwork by Susan Deutsch
Nearly 500,000 young adults are injured each year due to distracted driving, therefore TJ Partners’ participation in Distracted Driving Awareness Month isn’t just about enforcing the law but saving lives across the TJ community.
April is Distracted Driving Awareness Month and TJ Partners, the Parent-Teacher Organization at TJ, plans to present a free, educational event on distracted driving. The event will be hosted at TJ Tuesday, on April 10 from 5:30 to 7 pm. TJP has partnered with Colorado Department of Transportation (CDOT) and the Denver Police Department (DPD) who will be presenting a video on the dangers of texting and driving. Due to the video’s graphic contents, parents are cautioned to only bring children over 13, with parental guidance. TJ Parent Susan Deutsch, organizer of the event, commented on the video stating, “The video may seem incredibly graphic but I have no doubts that it will convince all teens to put the phone down before they drive.” Also on display will be a mangled car, the result of a rollover accident after the teen operating the vehicle chose to text while driving. CDOT and the DPD will be providing handouts and giveaways as well as be available for questioning.
As the problem of distracted driving grows exponentially throughout the community, various studies have been conducted to confirm the issue. The number one source of driver inattention is the use of a wireless device and at any one time, 10 percent of drivers aged 16 to 24 years old are on their phones. Many of us let ourselves believe that it is okay to use our phones if we innocently intend to send a short, quick text, check Facebook or Twitter, or call a friend while traveling. This is rationalized by the fact that it will only take a few seconds when in fact in five seconds a car can travel the length of a football field. Carnegie Mellon reports that simply talking on the phone cuts the driver’s brain activity associated with driving by nearly 40 percent. According to a study done by the University of Utah, distraction from cell phone use while driving, even with hands free, extends a driver’s reaction as much as having a blood alcohol concentration at the legal limit of .08 percent. Altogether, drivers who use cell phones are four times as likely to get into crashes serious enough to injure themselves.
Supporters of the awareness month believe there is no single message so important that it is worth someone’s life. They pose the question, could you live with yourself if a traffic crash you caused while texting, killed someone? The program sends the message that before attempting to rationalize using a cell phone again while driving, use the time instead to contemplate what the text would say that was worth a life, because it could very well be the last.
