This could make an impression on kids who text while driving. It is a well made demonstration of what can happen in an accident.
Warning: Strong scenes, but something young drivers need to see.
We Scour the Web, so You Don't Have To!
We Scour the Web, so You Don't Have To!
My boyfriend works for a rescue service here in TN. I have gone with him to calls where he has to cut people out of cars. It seems that young people texting or driving drunk are usually the worst..and it’s a real wake up call to anyone who has to witness that. This really IS very well made..
maybe it’s just the fact that i live in a larger city and thus everyone maintains some level of childishness, but the people who i see texting while driving and nearly causing serious accidents are primarly men in their late 20s / early 30s and women in their early-ish 20’s – mid 40’s. even more impressive/terrifying the abundance of cyclist who actually text while they’re riding bikes down city streets.
in all cases, teenagers are a very small minority of what i see. why does western society have such disdain for our youth?
Let’s hope this will actually make a difference. Even if it is just one…
Thanks Jonco for allowing this here and thanks to those producing it.
This is really really fake. The idea is good though..
Wow. You just ruined my day
I find the variation of traffic level and the fact the the people seemed to be in a worse accident than the cars a give away.
Jonco, I visit this site all the time and really enjoy all the posts that you put up. I’ve never commented before, but felt that this was one post which I couldn’t not post on. Thy King and rtfgnow, of course this is not real, it doesn’t take a genius to figure that out, but this did make a huge impression and I feel it’s one of the most realistic simulations of what could easily happen if one’s not paying attention while driving. Albeit a worst case scenario, it’s still made me stop and think about all the things that I do while driving instead of paying attention to the road. Jonco, thank you for putting this up and thanks for a terrific website!
Of course it’s people acting out this demo, but it might make one or two people think about what can happen because of a little carelessness. My daughter had a fairly minor accident when she was a teenager and I think that made her a much better driver. Young adults (not just teenagers) sometimes think they’re invincible, that nothing can happen to them. As we’ve all seen on the news, this in not true. Maybe someone will see this and realize what can happen.
rtfgnow – Without going into detail, I can tell you that you can’t tell how bad an accident is for people by looking at the damage to the car.
Thy King – How would you film something like this without simulating it? Never mind–I don’t want to know.
Jonco – I agree with steveyd & Derrick – This is an important video…not only every teen driver should see it…Every driver should see it.
realistic enough for me..
This has, unfortunately, happened in real life:
“Texting while driving, in particular, can turn tragic. In 2007, a 17-year-old driver and four passengers were killed in New York when her SUV crashed, head on, into a tractor-trailer. Though police couldn’t say for sure that it was the driver doing the texting or talking, her phone records showed constant activity of sending and receiving text messages and calls in the seconds and minutes right before the crash. The friends had just graduated from high school together less than a week earlier.”
http://kidshealth.org/research/texting.html
Can cars be built with some kind of block for all cell phone usage?
Wow, that is a powerful message. I saw a lot of accidents when I was a truck driver. Good one!
very good. i’ve had to respond to several accident calls where the person at fault was either texting/talking on the phone. i just found out today that one of the judges in in miami-dade makes teens that get in accidents write essays about better driving for teens. she made the girl read it out loud in court which i thought was a pretty good idea.
Paul – And it’s not only teens and it’s not only cars. Last year in LA a Metrolink engineer missed a red light while texting and he was killed…along with 25 innocent commuters. Over 80 more were taken to hospitals. And a few months ago a Boston train engineer was also texting and also missed a stop signal and 46 were injured. If you google ‘accidents texting’, there are so many, and so many deaths, it’s unbelievable. I can’t believe there isn’t a loud national outrage.
I’d always heard that accident rates were almost the same when talking on a cell phone as driving drunk. At least when you’re on the phone or drunk, even tho your mind might not be on the road, your eyes are. But when you’re texting, you’re just a passenger in a 2000 lb projectile with no one controlling it.
I LOVE the idea of some kind of block for cell phones/texting while the vehicle is in motion.
Jonco-Yes this is serious, I am a teenage driver and I do not text while driving.
PiB-It’s called a faraday cage. They block all wireless transmissions, cars already have some of the properties that is why radio antennas are usually outside the car. In theory it could be improved.
The only thing people should be doing when driving their car is DRIVING THEIR CAR
In a sane world this would be the LAW on every square inch of the planet
Stop the damn car if you need to make a call or do whatever
You’re a teenager rtfgnow? I’m not saying here if you’re right or wrong, just that you are wise beyond your years. I thought you were an old fart. LOL and kisses.
I will have to send this to my friend. Her son just totaled his 2006 caddy because he was texting. He’s 21 and should know better!
Wow–that was very powerful.
Paul in Boca and DJ: I would not want a faraday cage blocking my cell phone in my car, and here is why: This past winter, I spent a lot of time driving through Illinois, and on a few snowy nights I had to call 911 because I saw cars in the ditch. True, I could have stopped and called, but I was concerned about being able to stop and start again safely, and using my Bluetooth headset, I was able to keep both hands on the wheel and safely keep on driving.
And not being and EMT and having little first aid knowledge, I did not figure I could give much help to anyone in the cars; also, the cars did not look banged up–just that the driver lost control and slid in the ditch (as opposed to rolling it or running into another vehicle) without injuring themselves or any passengers they may have had.
Why teenagers only? Every Driver have to see it.
That was disgusting – I hope the message gets through loud and clear to people. I keep thinking that many states could balance their budgets if they started giving hefty fines people who have their cell phone in one hand and the steering wheel in the other. Double the fines each subsequent catch until maybe the 4th or 5th time – at which point they’d impound and compact/crush the car and return the lump to the owner. I’d never heard of a faraday cage (You learn something new on B&P all the time). It should be activated when the ignition is on. (Tim, I disagree with your not being able to pull over to call for help; if the weather conditions are so bad, then you should be focused on the road. Good samaratins are not impervious to accidents.)
The reason teen drivers are targeted with this stuff is that due to their relative inexperience driving, they are less able to recover or adjust to a crisis while driving. While I may not be a stunt driver, I have recovered from fishtailing a van across three lanes, had the fun of a low speed 720 in snow (by accident, I assure you), and have logged probably over a million miles or so, with a chunk of that in an armored vehicle on dirt roads (during which I was multi-tasking like a son of a gun maintaining situational awareness and looking for “stuff” in the road).
Kids are crappy at maintaining situational awareness while doing something else – Try asking a teen something while they are watching their favorite show on TV. Many adults are as well of course, but their experience at driving allows them to recover from their stupidity more successfully, and adults generally tend to drive more conservatively making their errors more recoverable.
Hey William.
My friend’s wife was parked in traffic the other day. A teenager hit her FULL FORCE from behind, knocking her into oncoming traffic. She’s damn lucky she wasn’t killed. And what was he doing? TEXTING.
It’s not “disdain” for youth. Youth do really stupid things because they don’t care about anything but themselves. It’s just the way it is.
a study done in NY state. The single biggest thing that distracted drivers is low-tech: spilled coffee, adjusting radio, adjusting climate control, etc.
I wonder if more people are texting now to avoid getting caught with the cell phone laws?
I still think the elderly are causing most of the accidents. Driving too slow can be just as dangerous.
Oh dear, my sister just got her license a week ago, and has that kind of distracted personality; she is also training to be an EMT.
Jesus Christ..