texting while driving video|news

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A 30-MINUTE film designed to teach Welsh school children about the dangers of texting while driving has become a worldwide internet hit.More than 1.4 million people have watched the graphic and realistic crash scenes online.Even in a world with increasingly tough and graphic public service announcements on TV about the dangers of such activities as smoking, a recent PSA originating out of Gwent, Wales, breaks new boundaries in the explicit level of its bloody details.Two teen girls giggle over a text message they are sending while driving along a country road. Distracted, the driver smashes head-on into another car, and while the bloodied girls exchange dazed glances, a third car careens into the passenger side.

The driver finds her friend lying dead next to her. Then the camera switches to another smashed vehicle and shows a young child inside, asking why her parents are not waking up.This texting while driving PSA has to be one of the most graphic public service announcements I have ever watched.The texting while driving PSA is horrific, as it shows the events of a car crash caused by negligence in gruesomely realistic detail. The shock that this ad conjures up is enough to not only make you stop texting and driving, but perhaps even stop driving all together.Check out the video of the texting while driving PSA above, but be warned that it is extremely unsettling.

Driving while text messaging and driving within three feet of cyclists would be banned under a proposal the Austin City Council will consider Thursday, though police say the ideas might be tough to enforce.Council Members Mike Martinez and Chris Riley and Mayor Lee Leffingwell are proposing to prohibit writing, sending and reading text messages, instant messages and e-mails, as well as viewing the Internet on a cell phone or other portable electronic device while driving a vehicle or bicycling.They also want to require a three-foot distance between vehicles and "vulnerable road users," such as cyclists, pedestrians and people in wheelchairs. Either party — the driver or other road user — could be ticketed for failing to keep that distance, Martinez said.The violations would likely be Class C misdemeanors, which carry a fine of up to $500 and can be appealed in Municipal Court.

The changes aim to improve public safety and bring more public awareness to dangerous driving behaviors, Martinez said.We've lost sight of the responsibilities that come with operating on a roadway," he said. "In a city like Austin, which has some of the most congested roads in the country, the last thing we need to be doing is reading e-mails while driving."City officials said the texting ban might be the first such citywide ban in Texas. If the council approves the policies at its Thursday meeting, city staffers would draft rules that the council would have to vote on before enactment. That process would take at least two months, Martinez said.Martinez began floating the idea of a local texting ban last year but said he wanted to see how bills fared at the state Legislature first.

More than a dozen bills addressing cell phone use while driving failed during this year's legislative session, he said. One that survived — prohibiting cell phone use in school zones — will take effect Sept. 1, but some cities are questioning whether they must enforce it. Austin plans to enforce it and install about 750 signs related to the school-zone ban — at an estimated cost of $80,000 — within a year, starting this fall.Martinez said he's interested in enacting a ban on cell phone use while driving — an idea he suggested last year — but said the issue needs more debate. There is clearer data to show that texting while driving poses a danger, he said.