THE COUNTRY GAZETTE May 12, 2010

CAPE COD TIMES 4/8/2010

By HEATHER WYSOCKI

hmwysocki@yahoo.com

MASHPEE – Driving while text messaging is just as dangerous as drunken driving.

That’s the message Dr. Gregory Parkinson, a Falmouth pediatrician and chairman of the Cape and Islands End Driving Deaths AmongYouth group, wanted parents and teens to take away from last night’s Safety Summit for Teens at Mashpee High School.

“It was estimated in a recent study that texting while driving will increase the risk of crash 23 times,”Parkinson said.

On Cape Cod , teenagers are involved in fatal crashes at a disproportionately high number compared to the rest of the state. In 2009, nine people under the age of 25 died in Cape crashes, he said.

Mashpee High senior Jenna Butera agrees texting while driving is an unacceptable risk. Once an avid behind-thewheel text-messenger, Butera said she stopped after taking a driver’s training course.

Butera is vice president of the school’s BeSmart Wellness Coalition, a club that works to educate teen drivers about the dangers of texting while driving.

During the daylong driver’s training course, which Butera attended with other BeSmart club members, students were asked to drive a course at 60 mph and stop abruptly at a line of cones. Then the course instructors added a twist: Accomplish the maneuver while sending a text message to a friend.

Not a single student in the group could stop on the line while handling their cell phone, Butera said.

“I annihilated the cones,” Butera said, adding she also drove well past the designated stopping point.“I put my phone in the backseat now.”

Jeff Larson, a WCVB Channel 5 traffic reporter in Boston, had a similar message at last night’s safety summit.

“I see firsthand the distractions people have with their cell phones,”he said.

Larson is a spokesperson for Safe Roads Alliance, a nonprofi t group that educates drivers about dangerous behaviors on the road.

Since cell phones have become more common, vehicle crashes have become severe and frequent, Larson said, with motorists focusing on the devices instead of paying attention to their surroundings.

According to Larson, the average 5-second text message takes a driver’s eyes off the road for about 100 yards of travel distance. “You just traveled the length of a football field,”he said.

The danger of operating a car while distracted by a cell phone is also the driving force behind a state bill that could soon go into affect.

Under the state’s proposed safe driving bill, texting while operating a motor vehicle would be considered a so-called primary measure: police officers would be allowed to stop a car if the driver was visibly using a handheld phone for text messaging . Fines would range from $100 for a first offense, $250 for a second and $500 for a third. Drivers under 18, would, in addition to the fees, lose their licenses for 180 days for a first offense and for one year after each additional offense.

The bill has passed in both the House and the Senate, with lawmakers “sorting out issues” before passing the bill to Gov. Deval Patrick for his signature, Parkinson said.

Nineteen states already have laws banning texting while driving.

Like Parkinson and Larson, Butera is a supporter of the proposed Bay State law.

Teens might be impatient to communicate with friends, she said, but the danger inherent in the activity just isn’t worth the potential price.

“It’s going to be a stupid text anyway,”she said.

 
 
Dr. Jeri Katz, center, of Foxboro talks with students in the BeSmart Wellness Coalition, a Mashpee High School club, about driver safety during the seventh annual Safety Summit put on by the Cape and Islands End Driving Deaths Among Youths group.

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