Teens crash in texting and driving simulator
A broken windshield, part of the aftermath of Laura Duke, 15, driving while texting in the Reality Ride simulator.
Bethel Park police officer Tom Rigatti runs down the “citation” for 16-year-old Zach Fazio.
A Bethel Park high school student collided into a pedestrian. Another swerved over the median and back into traffic. Both were cited for their dangerous driving.
It was all fake, of course, after Allstate hosted a two-day blitz of their Reality Rides texting and driving simulator at Bethel Park and Mt. Lebanon high schools. The insurance company is visiting 40 cities across America to educate about the dangers of distracted driving.
“Nearly 20 percent of all police-reported crashes are caused by distracted driving, according to the National Highway and Traffic Safety Administration,” Allstate spokeswoman Julia Reusch said.
“And in 2010 and 2011, more than 3,000 people died from accidents involving distracted driving. More than 400,000 were injured.”
The simulation had students driving with a phone in hand while other students would send texts outside the vehicle as the driver navigated a four-lane highway with typical traffic patterns and pedestrians.
“Almost all of the kids without licenses or just getting on a learner’s permit crashed into a vehicle or pedestrian,” Bethel Park police officer Tom Rigatti said.
“And nearly all of them didn’t yield, stopped in an intersection to check a text or didn’t stop at lights and stop signs.”
Rigatti reviewed the students’ driving behavior and issued faux citations with laws they would have broken had they been on the road.
After completing the simulation, students then stamped their thumb print on the “X the Text” campaign banner, and wrote a personalized pledge not to text and drive.
Laura Duke, 15, isn’t driving yet, but said the experience left an impact on her.
“I was trying to respond, and spell and look at the same time, and yeah, you saw what happened. I crashed. This was definitely a reality check for what I’m not going to do when I start driving.”
“I didn’t kill anybody,” Zach Fazio, 16, said of his driving performance.
“I try to put my phone down when driving. But I worry about my mom and grandma sometimes, so, nine times out of ten I won’t reach for my phone.”
The simulation was a good reminder for Fazio.
“I almost hit a telephone pole recently when I was going very slow while texting,” Fazio said.
“I mean, it’s so easy. Just don’t even pull your phone out. Drunk driving, I mean that’s horrible, but with texting, your eyes aren’t even on the road. In some cases it’s worse.”