Title:
Teaching the Dangers of Distracted Driving, Before
It's Too Late
Description: This is
a VOA Special English Education Report.
See text below
Text:
Car crashes are the top killer of American
teenagers. Most of the crashes result from
distracted driving -- not paying attention to the
road.Ryan Didone was a fifteen-year-old passenger in
a car that hit a tree. He was one of the nation's
more than thirty thousand victims of traffic crashes
in two thousand eight. Nearly four thousand deaths,
about twelve percent, involved drivers age fifteen
to twenty. Ryan's father, Thomas Didone, is a police
captain in Montgomery County, Maryland. He said the
driver of the car was inexperienced and was driving
at night with a carload of kids. He was going too
fast and caused one death and some serious tragedy
for the rest of the community.Jim Jennings from the
Allstate Insurance Company says the number one cause
of distracted-driving accidents is the mobile phone.
He says talking on the phone or reaching for it is
like drinking four beers and driving. He said if you
are texting while driving, you are twenty-three
times more likely to get into an accident than
somebody who is not. If you reach for a cell phone
when it is ringing, you are nine times more likely
to get into an accident. Government and private
groups are using public service announcements and
events to bring more attention to the problem. For
example, the insurance industry recently held a
safety event near Washington for teen drivers. At
first, nineteen-year-old Kevin Schumann easily
avoided large, inflatable dolls thrown in front of
the car to represent children. He also avoided
orange cones representing the edge of the road.
Then, as part of the test, he started texting. He
hit several cones and at least one doll.Debbie
Pickford of Allstate Insurance says teens are
especially at risk from distracted driving -- and
not just because they lack experience on the roads.
She said teens do not really have fully developed
brains until they are twenty-five years old. New
legislation in Congress proposes to require all
states to have a graduated driver licensing system.
Graduated means teenagers start with restrictions on
night driving and numbers of passengers. They could
not get a full driver's license until age eighteen.
Thomas Didone shares the story of his son's death to
help educate teens and their families about
distracted driving.
And that's the VOA Special English Education Report.
You can watch a video of this report at
voaspecialenglish.com.
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Hi. I
personally reviewed this video and found it appropriate for
the news section of English Global Group. This
is a Voice of America video which covers an interesting
topic in Special English. I would appreciate some feedback from both
students and teachers about this video. You can comment in
the window below using any of a number of different services
including Facebook, Yahoo, AOL, and Hotmail.
