After the Bowman Breakfast earlier this month the Kent Police Department and KSU Police rounded up the usual cast of local dignitaries to help promote a new safety campaign that partners with local businesses to raise awareness on the risks that come when people text and drive, text and walk, and even text and bike.
We’ve all seen the symptoms — head bent down, elongated neck, shoulder hunch, bloodshot eyes, thumb soreness, and completely clueless to what’s happening around them. It’s not a good look.
That’s why the Kent and KSU PD are joining up to arrange a community intervention in the form of a public information campaign to stop distracted texting.
Everything has a time and a place and m0bile technology has great benefits but not when driving or walking around town — it’s not safe.
The National Safety Council reports that cell phone use while driving leads to 1.6 million crashes each year. Nearly 330,000 injuries occur each year from accidents caused by texting while driving. 1 out of every 4 car accidents in the United States is caused by texting and driving.
Throughout the next month, Kent PD and Kent State PD will be closely monitoring distracted driving and distracted pedestrians to encourage them to keep their phones down and heads up.
KSU just completed a great experiment where they had an employee dress up in a blue Santa suit wearing a bunny head. The person walked around campus and students were asked if they noticed anything unusual — and as you might imagine, a lot of students were so engrossed in their phone that they had no idea about the costume.
The bunny costume is trivial, a 2,000 pound car is not, so hopefully those students got the point.
Here’s the link to the full story on the bunny costume: