TULARE COUNTY – Distracted driving is a leading cause of car accidents and fatalities according to the National Highway Traffic Safety administration, and in an effort to bring awareness to the risks, AT&T and the Friday Night Live program have partnered to bring awareness to teens.
Friday Night Live (FNL) recently partnered with students throughout high school campuses in California to help gather data and spread awareness of the commonality of distracted driving. Three students from Redwood High School in Visalia helped gather data by recording incidences of distracted driving at an intersection near the campus.
“I think the students were shocked by some of the things they saw,” FNL Director Nani Dodson said in a telephone interview with The Sun-Gazette.
One important lesson that the students learned was the range of things that constitute distracted driving, FNL Program Analyst Devann McClellan said. The students saw that doing things such as playing with the radio, reaching for objects in the passenger seat or the back seat in addition to texting and driving.
The Fresno chapter of FNL also participated in the traffic study. Dodson said students were able to monitor more intersections in the Fresno region than most other counties, which led to higher-than-average numbers but could indicate the true extent of the problem. Students recorded a total of 1,281 instances of distracted driving during the study. In comparison, Napa County recorded just 496 instances, according to a press release.
In all, 30 intersections statewide were monitored with more than 4,000 instances reported, totaling more than 66 instances per minute. The most common distraction was cellphone use at 859 instances while passenger-related distractions ranked second with 767 instances reported.
The National Transportation Highway Traffic Safety Administration says that the act of looking at a text message takes about five seconds. They report that at highway speeds, the time it takes to check a text message is equivalent to driving with one’s eyes closed for the length of a football field.
The data collected by the students is useful to city planners and in some counties has been used to determine where to install stop lights, crosswalks and other types of traffic safety systems to cut down on distracted driving accidents.
The California Office of Traffic Safety found that in a 2023 survey, more than 70% of drivers identified distracted driving as the biggest safety concern. According to OTS, 140 Californians were killed in distracted driving-related crashes in 2021 which represents an increase of more than 23% over 2020.
“It was really exciting to see the young people have hands-on experience and also see the outcomes of their advocacy efforts,” Dodson said. “We are all about making the connection of the useful data and answering the question of what to do with it,” Dodson said.
She added that the students who participated in the data collection also had the opportunity to then take the data and organize it through their math class. The process helps students see the issue of distracted driving while also allowing for an educational opportunity to see how raw data is used.
This program is supported by AT&T through the company’s “It Can Wait” program that aims to spread awareness of the consequences of distracted driving while encouraging drivers to use features such as hands-free texting and calling.
The Friday Night Live program is a part of the California Friday Night Live Partnership (CFNLP) and is designed for high school-aged young people and is motivated by youth-adult partnerships that create essential and powerful opportunities that enhance and improve local communities.
The CFNLP office and staff are housed in the Tulare County Office of Education, where Superintendent of Schools Tim Hire is a partner of the organization.
The California Friday Night Live Collaborative (CFNLC) Leadership Team consists of representatives from each of the six CFNLC Regions. Each representative is elected by the county coordinators of that region and represents the interests of those counties. Members of the leadership team represent the collaborative voice to inform policy, support competency and provide direction to the Friday Night Live system, according to TCOE.
