Nearly 1,000 students at American Senior High School took a pledge to stop texting while driving for At&t’s national “No text on Board” Day.
“We want texting and driving to become as unacceptable as drinking and driving so by having this National Day we were hoping to draw attention and get everyone to agree that today will be the last day they text behind the wheel," said Kelly Starling, an AT&T spokeswoman.
Miami-Dade leaders also came together to draw attention to the dangers of texting and driving.
“So this is an extremely important day, extremely important reminder to the young people not to text and drive,” said Miami Dade School Board Chair Perla Tabares Hantman.
“Let’s take the pledge seriously and lets stick to this and reverse the trend,” said Esteban Bovo Jr., a Miami-Dade County Commissioner.
Studies from the Virginia Tech Transportation Institute show that you are 23 times more likely to get involved in an accident when texting and driving.
“Well, if they have an app that will do that on their behalf we have something called drive mode, if you enable it and some one text or emails you it will send an automatic response hi im driving I’ll get back to you when it’s safe," Starling said.
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Some students were shocked as the watched the "the last text," a mini-documentary featuring stories of lives that have been drastically changed or lost from simple messages on the road.
“I’ll admit I have texted and driven but once I started seeing those commercials so I’ve stopped, thankfully and its taught me a lesson so I hope it taught everyone else a lesson too," said student Diana Darhi.
AT&T also unveiled its new online driving simulator, created so anyone with internet access can experience the dangers. This day is part of their "It can wait," campagn, where the goal is to save lives and have all drivers young and old pledge to practice safer driving habits.
