September 19th is “No Text on Board ...It Can Wait Day.”  Last year at ELHS, we had a powerful presentation for our students that included a testimony of a father who lost his young daughter due to a texting related accident and a young man who is currently in prison for texting while driving that resulted in the death of a man.  The statistics on texting are frightening:

• 100,000 crashes a year involve  drivers who are texting
• 75% of teens  say texting and driving is “common” among their friends
• texting drivers are 23 more times more likely to get in a car accident.  

My hope is that our students will be smarter and not engage in cell phone use while driving, however, if parents want to take that extra step to insure that texting and phone calls while driving does not happen, there is a precaution you can take.  

Key2SafeDriving is a device that is easily installed in your car and on your phone that instantly shuts down texting and incoming calls when the key is in the ignition.  The phone immediately enters “safe driving mode” which means all incoming texts receive a message that you are driving, and all incoming calls are sent directly to voice mail.  No texting can occur when the key is in the ignition of the car.  The cost of this device is $99.  For more information, check out:   http://www.key2safedriving.net