Tough lesson on texting and driving

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This article was published 22/09/2011 (5309 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Every time Amber McCrae sends a text message while driving, she tells herself, “It’s just this once.”

Two days ago, for instance, the 17-year-old was rushing to a sports venue for a class.

“I just texted my teacher saying I’d be late,” she said. “It was at a red light, so it kind of seems like it’s not a big deal or anything…

“It bugs me when I see other people do it, but I’ve done it.”

Dani Chalus, 17, also admitted to occasional texting behind the wheel. “I really try not to,” she said.

They’ve been warned before, of course, that it’s dangerous and illegal. But on Wednesday, after watching a graphic video presentation about collisions and a stark reenactment of a fatal crash caused by a texting driver, the teens vowed to change their ways.

The wake-up call clearly got through to them, even before they sat in pews for a realistic half-hour funeral for the imaginary victim and heard wrenching testimonials from emergency responders.

It was all part of a four-hour educational program that’s held once a year at Chapel Lawn Funeral Home. This was the 16th year for the mock-collision day, organized by the Manitoba Brain Injury Association in partnership with the RCMP, Winnipeg police and fire paramedics and Manitoba Public Insurance.

About 150 grades 11 and 12 students from College Beliveau and Gray Academy attended.

Bleachers and speakers were set up in the funeral-home parking lot so students could witness minute-by-minute what happens at a fatal crash scene. After an ambulance, fire truck and police cars arrived with sirens wailing, the texting pickup truck driver who T-boned a small car was charged on the spot with criminal negligence causing death.

“I’ve never really seen an accident with anyone hurt,” Amber said afterward. “I could feel it like it was real.”

As for her own vehicular texting; “Just to think that I took concentration off the road for, like, 10 seconds is actually pretty bad… I’ll probably try to put my phone in the back seat, or somewhere I can’t reach it now.”

David Sullivan, executive director of the Manitoba Brain Injury Association and co-ordinator of the event, said the crash-scene dramatization — in which police officers and emergency responders simulate their real duties — has taken different themes in past years, such as the dangers of reckless road racing.

The cellphone-texting story was used this year because it’s a timely issue, he said. Just two weeks ago, a 53-year-old man was killed in Winnipeg when a 19-year-old who was allegedly texting while driving slammed his pickup truck head-on into the man’s sedan.

“Every youth has a cellphone,” Sullivan said. “They need to be aware of the consequences… We don’t sugar-coat it.”

Students’ feedback forms show the multimedia experiential program at the funeral home gets through to them better than abstract warnings or preachy lectures.

Many teens pride themselves on their nimble texting thumbs and believe they can control a vehicle while swiftly typing a message on the phone in their lap, Sullivan said.

“They think they’re good at it. It’s not about whether you can multi-task. …In those two or three seconds when they take their eyes off the road, things happen. When you look away — boom.”

 

alison.mayes@freepress.mb.ca