Text-messaging - the newest hazard on the roadways.
According to a recent survey by the Washington Traffic Safety Commission (WTSC), 25 percent of our state's teenagers regularly send and receive text messages on their cell phones while they drive.
"Text-messaging is particularly concerning because of how much it takes your eyes and mind off the road," said Jonna VanDyk, WTSC communications program manager. "It takes so much concentration."
The WTSC surveyed 663 high-school students in four locations across the state: Spokane, Bellingham, Yakima and King County. Instead of a written questionnaire, students were individually interviewed on traffic-related topics, ranging from speeding, cell phones and seatbelt use.
"We have never focused on teens as a population, so we started looking at some of the data," said Julie Furlong, a WTSC public-relations consultant. "We found out that teens represent 7 percent of the driving population but are responsible for 15 percent of the traffic-related fatalities. That's just too high."
Setting the groundwork
As the first in-depth study focused on teenagers, the WTSC hopes the survey results will set a groundwork for future action in addressing a population with driving habits not wholly understood, but often criticized.
"It gives us some real, good information that we can use to go forward," VanDyk said. "We don't have any answers, just questions at this point. But we're going in the right direction."
With businesses now able to send text messages as advertisements - coupled with a cell-phone user's ability to receive personal messages, sporting-event updates and event reminders through their phone - the text-message market is continually growing. Unfortunately, this will likely have an adverse effect on traffic safety.
"When you're text-messaging, you're not paying attention to the road whatsoever," Furlong said. "It's worse than talking on the phone."
As opposed to other typical distractions in the car - eating, adjusting the radio or glancing at an accident at the side of the road - reading and typing messages requires a greater amount of concentration, leaving the driver with less ability to perceive and react to potential roadside obstacles, they say.
Curing 'part-time' seatbelt users
As a result of the WTSC's Click It or Ticket seatbelt campaign, Washington state now boasts the nation's second-best seatbelt compliance percentage, at 95.2 percent. In the recent survey, students confirmed this high seatbelt-use at 98 to 100 percent.
However, when asked how often they abided by the law, only 80 percent of the students admitted to religious seatbelt use - resulting in 20 percent of teens as what the WTSC calls "part-time" users.
"They may be wearing them, but not always," Furlong said.
To cure this liberal approach to traffic safety, which can lower the risk of serious injury in a collision by nearly 70 percent and the chance of death by 50 percent, the WTSC presented three distinct public-service announcements to the student audience, hoping to gauge the most effective way to target the teen population.
"Teens are more involved in fatal collisions, so naturally that's where we should be working," VanDyk said. "This was the first step on finding out what we can begin to do about it."
One advertisement attempted to use humor as a device to reach the teens; another used a more "real-life" approach. However, the ad that affected the students the most - and the one they overwhelmingly supported - was an intentionally graphic and visually disturbing ad created in Ireland.
"If we're going to impact behaviors based on what we learn, we had better know how to reach them," Furlong said. "Unequivocally, the ad the kids responded to was the graphic ad."
Featuring a car full of teenagers, the ad shows how an unbuckled passenger can become a "human missile" and crash into the windshield, as well as other passengers, due to the tremendous force absorbed in a collision.
"It is pretty clear that that's the way to go if you're going to influence the teen population," Furlong said.
Graphic ads proven effective
Graphic ads have been used in foreign countries, often resulting in dramatic traffic-safety improvements; however, the WTSC is reticent to follow this trend, acknowledging that the intense images might upset many viewers.
"The teens told us, 'It shows us what happens,'" VanDyk said. "This basically means they're telling us, 'We need to be shown. We don't get it until we see it.'"
In the near future, the WTSC hopes to share this information with other organizations like the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration to develop the most-efficient safety programs and public-service announcements.
In the fall, the WTSC will focus their attention on school-zone traffic safety.
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