“Stop The Texts! Stop The Wrecks!”
Article by Antoy Grant
Ad Provided by: The Ad Council
Agency: The Concept Farm
Sponsor: State Attorney’s General, National Highway Traffic Safety Administration

The Facts

Fact # 1 Five Seconds is the average time your eyes are off the road while texting. When traveling at 55mph, that’s enough time to cover the length of a football field. (2009, VTTI)

Fact # 2 Reaching for a phone, dialing, texting and other uses of portable devices increased the risk of getting into a crash by three times. (2009, VTTI)

Fact # 311% of all drivers under 20 involved in fatal crashes were reported as distracted. This age group has the largest proportion of drivers who were distracted. (2012, NHTSA)

Tips To Stop

Out of sight, out of mind.
Silence is golden.
Find your app.
Designate a texter.

The Campaign

Nearly 500,000 young adults each year are injured due to various forms of distracted driving, including texting, mobile instant messaging, updating social media platforms, sending photos, etc. It’s a habit deadlier than drunk driving. We live in a constantly connected world where multitasking is second nature and communicating is instant. Coupled with this compulsion, teens and young adults are overly confident in their ability to ‘safely’ text while driving.

To stop this dangerous behavior, the Ad Council collaborated with the office of the State Attorneys General and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) to create a Texting and Driving Prevention campaign. The campaign targets young adult drivers and aims to show them the consequences of this seemingly benign behavior. The campaign features Public Service Advertising (PSAs) in TV, radio, outdoor and web, as well as integrated digital and social media platforms. All advertising drives consumers to StopTextsStopsWrecks.org where consumers can find tips and tactics for how to curb this behavior.