Surrey students’ art gets personal with distracted drivers
Posted September 27, 2016 6:12 pm.
Last Updated September 27, 2016 8:22 pm.
This article is more than 5 years old.
SURREY (NEWS 1130) – Elementary students have made distracted driving warnings a little more personal in an effort to get drivers to put down their cell phones while behind the wheel.
The personalized warning flyers include the phrase “Think of me. Leave your phone alone,” above an original, one-of-a-kind drawing by hundreds of local students. The flyers will be handed out by Surrey RCMP and volunteers at 10 schools this week.
“In a way it’s a bit of a stronger message. People feel quite impacted by the power of a child’s drawing versus a ticket,” ICBC’s Karen Klein says. “There’s a lot of rainbows and butterflies and basketball and all the things those kids enjoy, but if you look at that perspective, those are the things that can also be lost when a car crash occurs as a result of distracted driving.”
Schools also want to instill good driving habits in children long before they ever get behind the wheel.
Schools and police usually host speed reduction campaigns in September and get kids to draw on warnings, but lately the phrase has changed to ‘slow down’ to put down your phone, Klein says, as the number of distracted driving-related crashes continue to rise.
There are approximately 800 crashes daily across the province caused by distracted driving, and 25 per cent of all road deaths are caused by inattentive drivers, according to Klein.
The personalized warnings work in conjunction with the RCMP’s month-long distracted driving campaign.
