On Tuesday, February 1, parents and teens will have an opportunity to drive an obstacle course experiencing first hand the dangers of distracted driving as a part of News 10’s “The Great Hang Up” campaign.
The Great Hang Up Obstacle Course will be held at the Arco Arena from noon until 5:30 p.m. and is co-sponsored by the California Highway Patrol, the Office of Traffic Safety, Impact Teen Drivers, Virtual Driver, Sacramento Kings, Mothers Against Drunk Driving, and The Safety Center (Sacramento).
The first ten participants to finish the obstacle course and take the Great Hang Up pledge will receive free tickets to the Kings game that night against the Boston Celtics.
Officer Adrian Quintero is the spokesperson for the California Highway Patrol. “Parents and teens can have an opportunity to drive this obstacle course and respond to texts and other distractions. They can experience first hand the peril of distracted driving. We encourage the parents and teens to drive this obstacle course,” Quintero said.
The distracted driving course is designed to deter people from using their cell phones without a hands free device or texting while driving. Far too many motorists are still not dialed-in to the rules and are either being cited or becoming a grim statistic.
According to Quintero cell phones are one of the leading, identifiable, contributing factors in inattentive traffic collisions in California. Since inception of the hands-free law, there have been 1,303 collisions throughout the state, where a contributing factor was inattention by the driver due to cell phone usage. Those same collisions resulted in 17 fatalities and more than 850 victims injured. July 2008 through December 2010, CHP officers have issued 329,602 citations statewide to motorists who were in violation of the hands-free law and 5,100 citations statewide for texting while driving, according to CHP’s Statewide Integrated Traffic Records System.
Parent Resources
- Banana Moments
- Smart Schools
- Impact Teen Drivers
- Otter (Text Life Management)
- Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD)
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