D.O.N.T. campaign sets out to fight distracted driving

Kathleen Dunn was guilty of texting while driving the day she hit the cat.

The St. Clair College student now says it was that “sobering moment” which, more than anything, caused her to become involved in a new public awareness campaign launched at HotelDieu Grace Hospital Sept. 26.

D.O.N.T. – the acronym stands for “drive only, never text” – is an initiative of the hospital, the Windsor Essex Injury Prevention Coalition, the Brain Injury Association of Windsor and Essex County and Southland Insurance.

“I had to pull over, it affected me so deeply,” Dunn said. “It could have been a kid on a bike or anything. How unfortunate that you have to experience something like that to change your habits and behaviour.”

The marketing student says she will use the expertise she is learning in class to get that message out to young people and adults about the risks they take when they choose to respond to that incoming text or call while behind the wheel.

She and classmates at the college will focus on connecting with young people through social media, guerrilla marketing and other “unexpected and unconventional ways to reach people.” Guerrilla marketing involves such advertising methods as flash mobs and street theatre.

“People between the ages of 17 and 24 are most at risk for texting and driving,” Dunn said.

Const. Polachok, of the Windsor Police Service’s traffic enforcement unit, said that laws banning the use of hand-held devices while driving came out in October 2009, and since then local officers have recorded 2,200 offences or warnings.

Checking even a short message can mean the driver will “travel the length of a football field without looking at the road,” he said. At 60 km/h a vehicle travels 50 metres in three seconds.

Melanie Gardiner, of the Brain Injury Association of Windsor, said distracted driving is something most motorists are guilty of at one time or another, from the woman who applies eyeliner while driving to work, to the student who wolfs down breakfast cereal behind the wheel, or the executive checking his email at a stop light.

“It happens to everyday people all the time.”