PORTLAND — Officer Jamie Rooney was riding in a golf cart with a student during York High School’s annual safety fair last fall when the student at the wheel veered off the road.

“We went down, over the ditch and into the woods,” said Rooney, the school’s resource officer. As part of the exercise, the student had been trying to text while driving on the closed course, she said.

About 60 percent of students make it through the course wearing goggles that simulate a blood-alcohol content of 0.07 percent, she said. Hardly any make it through while texting.

Rooney was one of 150 people at a day-long symposium held Wednesday to raise awareness about the dangers of texting while driving and build support for a state law banning it.

Maine law now prohibits distracted driving, which includes texting, but advocates say a specific ban on texting is needed.

“If it’s against the law, people will think twice about doing it,” said state Sen. William Diamond, D-Windham, who hosted the conference along with AAA Northern New England. Diamond is sponsoring a bill to ban texting while driving. Thirty states already have similar laws.

Texting while driving is dangerous for anyone, but statistics show that teenagers run the greatest risk, said Ronald Medford, deputy administrator of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, the event’s keynote speaker.

“Your greatest risk of dying between now and when you reach age 33 is in a traffic crash,” Medford told about three dozen teenagers attending the event at Portland’s Ocean Gateway terminal.

In 2009, distracted driving — often because of cell phone use — contributed to 16 percent of fatal crashes in the U.S. for people younger than 20, Medford said, up from 10 percent in 2005.

“It’s good kids. It’s great kids. It’s all kinds of kids making really bad decisions while driving,” he said.

Change won’t be easy. Young people text almost unconsciously, and incessantly, Medford said.

Represented at Wednesday’s event were police, educators, driving academies, and the health care and insurance industries.

Some people suggested a technological fix. Already, some phones don’t work when they’re moving at certain speeds, although they can’t differentiate between a driver and a passenger.

The speakers said a more likely solution will be changing attitudes.

Hunter Blondin, a student at South Portland High School, said change will be hard.

“Texting is an addiction. I know people who go to bed with their cell phone and wake up with their cell phone,” he said.

John Ulczycki, a vice president of the nonprofit National Safety Council, said anyone like that should turn off the phone before driving and put it in the trunk until they reach their destination.

Ulczycki said social norms must change so that texting while driving is socially unacceptable. People today are much less likely to drive drunk or ride without seat belts than they were in the past, he said, and the same change can happen with cell phone use.

Wednesday’s event started with a powerful video produced by AT&T called “The Last Text,” part of a national campaign against texting and driving.

The video tells stories of young people who were killed or disabled in car crashes in which a driver was texting.

“Obviously, our industry’s products and services are part of the problem,” said Owen Smith, a vice president for AT&T in Maine. “We understand that, and it’s a priority of ours to really educate the general public and our customers about the dangers of texting and driving.”

Real-life stories are much more effective than statistics, laws and admonitions about the evils of texting and driving, said Michael Degou, one of 10 students who attended the conference from Lisbon High School’s chapter of Students Against Destructive Decisions.

That makes the experience of South Portland police Officer Rocco Navarro resonate.

Navarro continues to suffer from injuries he sustained in November when his cruiser was hit by a driver who was using a cell phone. The driver failed to brake for the stopped cruiser despite its flashing blue lights.

Navarro still has anxiety whenever he crosses the Casco Bay Bridge, where the crash occurred.

“We have to do something,” Navarro said. “At least if this can get this (anti-texting law) passed, people are going to know it’s illegal. A lot of people have morals. They’re going to put the phone down.” 

Staff Writer David Hench can be contacted at 791-6327 or at:
dhench@pressherald.com

 

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