April 24, 2015 at 5:44 p.m.
Watch the road, not the phone
Exercise demonstrates the perils of distracted driving
Watch the road, not the phone
RHS driver's education instructor Kevin Kirby said the results weren't pretty.
"Massive carnage has taken place today," he said. "The poor cones are getting pretty beaten up."
Most students noticed a significant increase in the number of cones they hit while texting, and that's the lesson Kirby was trying to teach, but for the students, it's not really a new concept.
"We're trying to pound home something they already know," he said. "We're trying to make the lesson a little more real to them. Ninety-three percent of people understand that texting while driving is dangerous, and yet, 63 percent still do it."
Kirby said that's a troubling figure and one he's struggling to understand.
"What don't we understand?" he asked. "What is more important? Where are your priorities? Are you afraid to dis some friends by not responding to them right away? What's more important? If this sheds any kind of light at all on how their skills diminish while texting, hopefully that will resonate somewhere."
If it doesn't, the consequences could potentially be very dire. Kirby said teens can feel invincible and that's a dangerous approach to driving.
"We always think that it's not going to happen to me," he said. "We think it's going to happen to somebody else. It does happen to us though."
That's what made the exercise so effective. Kirby said the young drivers could plainly see how much texting diminished their driving skills.
"There's been some 'Oh poops' or 'Oh, you made this too tight,'" he said. "There has been a lot of frustration. It's nice that they're taking it seriously. I appreciate that. It's an artificial situation, but sometimes you can still learn a lot in an artificial situation. That's what we're hoping they pull from this."
Nichole Ellis, a junior, took the challenge with a backseat full of friends, which added to the challenge. First, she navigated the course free from distraction. The second time around, phone in hand, it proved much tougher.
"On the second one, I was really distracted, and I obviously knocked out a lot of cones," she said. "(Kirby) was asking me a lot of questions and I had to text them. I had to cut a lot of corners, and I guess I would have killed a lot of people if I was driving on the road."
Andy Hildebrand may be reached at andy@rivernewson line.com.
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