EDMONTON – Social media tools that can distract the attention of teen drivers are key to promoting a new safe-driving campaign that urges motorists to keep their eyes on the road.
Teens from six Edmonton schools, many of whom don’t yet have their driver’s licences, put the videos together to educate people about the dangers of distracted driving. It is part of a new Alberta Motor Association campaign that asks motorists: What are you doing behind the wheel?
Teams from Victoria School of the Arts, W.P. Wagner High School, Harry Ainlay High School, Edmonton Islamic Academy, St. Francis Xavier Catholic High School and Louis St. Laurent Catholic Junior Senior High School made the public awareness videos. Most send the message that distracted drivers can injure or kill people.
Louis St. Laurent students used humour to sell the message that teens shouldn’t tolerate distracted driving. W.P. Wagner students put their peers through a driving simulation to test their abilities while distracted by a cellphone. Participants’ mistakes increased by 100 per cent, according to the school’s video.
The student-made videos are posted online at www.yourpledge.ca, where viewers are invited to vote for their favourite video, make an online pledge not to drive distracted, and share the safe-driving campaign through social media sites such as Twitter and Facebook. About 10,500 people have signed the online AMA pledge promising to avoid talking on hand-held phones, texting, emailing and other distracting behaviours that take focus off safe driving.
Grade 11 Harry Ainlay student Mohamed El Bialy said he hopes the safe-driving message is more powerful coming from peers than from police or a lecturing parent.
Teens are used to being constantly plugged in to social networks and it’s tempting to do a quick Facebook check or dash off a text while stopped at a red light, said El Bialy, who helped develop one of the videos.
“It’s that split-second that does make the difference. I think it is quite a big problem with kids nowadays, with smartphones,” said El Bialy, 16.
“I really hope people will think twice about checking that phone or drinking that coffee while they’re driving. I really hope people might wait a bit longer, have some patience, and think logically about whether it’s safe to do this or not …
“It’s really scary when you’re in the car and you’re going at that light and someone’s checking their phone and they don’t see that there’s another car turning at the same time. It’s just that split-second we’re trying to eliminate that could be life or death.”
St. Francis Xavier student Evangenlina Janschitz said she offers to answer the phone or respond to texts for friends who are driving, so they don’t pick up their smartphones.
“We hope to decrease the amount of distracted driving happening and make people aware how much it actually happens,” Janschitz said of the video campaign.
Distracted driving legislation that came into force in September 2011 means drivers can get a $172 ticket for behaviours such as using hand-held phones, operating electronic devices such as video players, manually programming GPS systems or portable audio players, reading or writing behind the wheel or personal grooming such as applying makeup.
Last year, Edmonton police issued 4,594 distracted driving tickets, 97 per cent of which were for offences related to cellphones, according to an AMA news release.
Distracted drivers are most often talking on hand-held phones or sending text messages, said acting Insp. Ted Hrebien Tuesday in the Edmonton City Centre mall where high schools students and officials launched the AMA campaign.
“Despite the fact that we’re probably 18 months into this new law, we see it every day,” Hrebien said.
“I think if we attached demerit points to the fine, you might see, perhaps, more compliance.”
Many drivers now try to conceal their phones, holding them in their laps to avoid being ticketed, said Chris Rechner, spokesman for the AMA’s advocacy programs.
That behaviour was the target of the recently launched Crotches Kill campaign by Alberta Transportation. The campaign uses traditional advertising along with digital ads for restaurant and bar washrooms and talking urinal pucks that tell Albertans, “We know what you’re doing down there.”
Distracted driving is one of the most serious hazards on the road along with speeding and impairment, Rechner said. “It puts everybody at risk.”
People using cellphones while driving are about five times more likely to be in a collision and those texting are 23 times more likely to either crash or nearly crash, according to AMA statistics.
The AMA hopes campaigns such as the one launched this week will eventually make distracted driving socially unacceptable, Rechner said.
Watch the videos below:
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