A team of middle school students recently displayed more initiative and productive behavior than is typically witnessed in adults. As a Bellevue car accident lawyer, I experience first hand the excessively careless behavior people display on the roads. This group on teenagers from Philadelphia, however, decided to take it upon themselves to increase safety on the roads.
The Christopher Columbus Fellowship Foundation sponsors a yearly competition for middle schoolers across the nation to create a scientific solution to a societal problem. This year; Alyssa Sullivan, Isabella DeLuca, Sara Rowlands, and Elizabeth Sauers will compete for the $25,000 prize with their invention the TEXTerminator.
The team realized after a survey they conducted around their home town that among 16-18 year olds 57% have text messaged while driving and 23% claim their parents also are guilty of texting behind the wheel. The team got to work and 7 months later produced the TEXTerminator. After developing the idea the teens acquired the assistance of a group f Subaru engineers the helped create the electronic signaling to block cell phone text messaging applications.
It never ceases to amaze me what a group of young adults can accomplish. Distracted driving accounts for 80% of auto accidents and texting behind the wheel alone accounts for 27%. In order to help curb this epidemic I founded Teens Against Distracted Driving until the TEXTerminator is on the market we can help create safer roads by simply promising to not text and drive.