Bromfield senior Jenny Specht attempts to text and drive during an April 2 simulation at the high school sponsored by the Students Against Destructive Decisions. (Photos by Lisa Aciukewicz)
As the driver began to text, the car drifted across the yellow center line and toward a group of cyclists coming up a hill. The driver swerved back into the right lane in the nick of time. Moments later, the driver failed to negotiate a sharp curve, and the car plunged over a steep drop. The image of a smashed windshield filled the video screen.
Yes, this was just a simulation. But it presented scenarios that take place daily on roads across the country.
The texting-and-driving simulation, offered to Bromfield students on Thursday, April 2, was sponsored by Students Against Destructive Decisions, said SADD President Olivia Alfano. Money for the program came from the Harvard Schools Trust, the Lions Club, and the Police Department, according to school nurse Colleen Nigzus. The program was presented by Peer Awareness of Grand Rapids, Michigan.
Texting easy to spot
About 165 high school students—mostly juniors and seniors—took the driving simulation test to see how cellphone texting affects a driver’s performance. Coming in groups from 9 a.m. till 2 p.m., students signed up to take a turn at the wheel of a car parked in front of the school. Drivers donned goggles that would show them the “road” ahead as they began the simulation. An instructor stood by the car window and told them when to begin texting.
Students gather to watch how a classmate fares on the texting simulator.
Meanwhile, the students who were awaiting their turns watched the same simulation, seeing what the driver saw, on a large screen a few feet from the car. Drivers confronted a range of normal driving challenges: urban areas with narrow streets, pedestrians, and stopped trucks; suburban neighborhoods with cars backing out of driveways; and construction zones with traffic cones and shifting lanes.
Onlookers could tell at once when the driver began texting, because the car began to weave. Some drivers were able to text and navigate the hazards a little longer than others, while others crashed almost instantly. But nearly all the scenarios ended the same way: the smashed windshield.
A teen killer
Instructor Rose Winquest of Peer Awareness peppered students with statistics on texting while driving. She told them that the practice causes a quarter of car accidents and kills teens every day. A driver is 23 times more likely to have an accident, she said, if he or she is texting.
Winquest said that 39 states have laws against texting while driving. It is not legal, she said, to text while stopped in traffic or even to pull off to the side of the road. The law in most states requires a person to be in a legal parking space when texting, Winquest explained. In fact, New York state has set up “texting stops” along some roads, with roadside signs announcing that a stop is five minutes ahead.
According to a Massachusetts State Police spokesman, drivers must be completely off the roadway when texting. It’s not enough to be in the breakdown lane, because that is considered part of the roadway, just as much as the travel lanes.
Most of the Bromfield students who took part in the program signed a pledge not to text while driving, Nigzus said in a subsequent email. More information on safe driving and the laws on teen driving in Massachusetts, including texting, can be found online at blog.mass.gov/blog/children-families/teen-safety-dont-text-and-drive.
