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Hi. In this video I'm going to show you a demonstration of a really, really nice tool
that I think goes a long way in helping young drivers understand the difficulties and dangers
of texting while driving.
So, we have a link to this really great resource directly from our website. You can just navigate
to www.cultureofsafety.com, go to our safety tips, and you'll find a link to "Texting and
Driving".
In this article we talk about some of the statistics involved with texting while driving,
and the importance of minimizing distraction, but towards the bottom we have a couple of
nice resources. In this video I'm going to show you the training tool that we link to
right here.
But I also wanted to draw your attention to this map here that identifies texting bans
across the country. You can click on it to get an up-to-date map of some of that information.
But, like I mentioned, I want to show you this really great exercise that the New York
Times released a few years ago.
I think it does a really, really great job in really showing how deadly and dangerous
texting while driving can be.
So, what we're going to do is, I'm just going to go through this game and kind of show you
how it works. I think you'll understand pretty quickly how beneficial this is for parents
trying to teach their young drivers the dangers.
So what you're supposed to do during this game is, there are different numbers above
all of these lanes, and what I'm doing is I'm going to
press the number on my keyboard to navigate to that lane.
Now I'll show you right here what happens if I screw up. It doesn't go through the right
lane.
So, right now the practice is getting ready to end.
I do want to point out that I've done this quite a few times so I may be a little bit
better at it then probably the first-time user might be.
So right now I'm navigating through and then you'll see a cellphone pop up here, and i've
got a message. So while I'm navigating through all of these gates I have to try to read this
message.
It says, "Hi, I'm making pie for for dessert, do you want apple, cherry, or pecan?
So, you can't just get away with reading, you actually have to respond and you have
to type in one of these answers. So I'm going to go ahead and say I want cherry.
While I'm navigating I'm trying to look back and forth I'm going to try to respond to cherry.
And I'm having a hard time talking while doing this,
let alone answering.
So I replied and now I'm back to driving.
So you keep going through and you'll get a couple
different questions, and I promise you even the most texting-savvy, video-game-playing
kid will have problems figuring this out.
So now I have to answer, do i want to have a ice cream or whipped cream with the pie.
So let's go with ice cream.
[silence]
Again I have to navigate through these lanes, and I got it done there.
If you spell one of those things wrong it makes you answer the question again.
You keep making it through all these different gates.
One new message, let's respond to this one pretty quick. We'll take decaf.
[silence]
Alright, so what happens when you finishedÉ I think that's going to be the last question
for us here.
The second you get done with it this really great chart shows you exactly the impact texting
while driving has.
I was a half-second slower while texting which really equates to a very, very big problem
if somebody was to come into the middle of the road outÉ if somebody was to run out
in front of you.
It says, "Did You See the Gray Lady?"
Every single time i've ever done this exercise I've never once seen the gray lady.
So I think this is a really great exercise that all drivers should go through, but especially
young drivers that think they're invincible, and are going to be safe while texting and
driving.
I hope this was helpfulÉ and safe driving!