Grapevine, TX woman takes message against distracted driving to the United Nations

[Ed Barrow]

Jennifer Smith took her battle against distracted driving to the world stage Wednesday.

The Grapevine resident, who has already traveled around the country raising awareness about the dangers of texting and talking behind the wheel, pushed her message at the United Nations in New York, imploring drivers around the world to focus on the road.

"This is not even just an American problem," she said. "It is a human problem affecting the entire world. Across the entire globe, we are losing mothers, fathers, daughters, sons, friends, grandparents and loved ones."

Smith, president and co-founder of a national advocacy group, FocusDriven, spoke alongside U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon and other leaders at a news conference billed as the launch of a global effort to end distracted driving. Ban announced a new directive banning more than 40,000 U.N. staff members from texting while driving on the job.

"Together, we have a message to all drivers of the world: Don't let using a mobile for a few seconds make you and others immobile for life," he said.



http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/news/localnews/stories/052010dnmetdistracted.8c752f2.html

[nadinbrzezinski]

1. Good for her

true story, Baja got a bill against using cell while driving before California. I was a medic and a chance encounter with the Governor (who lost a cousin in a traffic accident) led to us keeping statistics for three years. After that those were shown to a committee of the legislature, and as they say, the rest is history.

It was truly a chance encounter and me mentioning it to the man that we could tell who was guilty of causing the crash just from ... the presence of a cell around a driver at an accident scene. And so could the cops.

You will NOT catch me answering a Cell while driving... and lord knows I am a trained emergency driver... I don't care how many people tell me, but I can multi-task. I took way too many of them multi taskers to the trauma unit...

[tammywammy]

2. Good for her

I don't text and d drive, and I can't remember the last time I was on the phone while I drove. Just not that important.

Today they had a news article that all the high schooler in the city were going to watch a video about the dangers of texting while driving. Funny that a local area woman was on the same mission but at the UN.