EL PASO, Texas (KTSM) — The Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT) has started up its annual campaign “Talk. Text. Crash.” urging people not to text and drive.
TxDOT was at the University of Texas at El Paso on Tuesday, April 2 spreading the message.
The press conference featured multiple guests speakers from local police, state troopers and first responders.
“Distracted driving was been linked to more than 94,000 crashed in Texas last year, 1 in every 6 (crashes),” said Eduardo Perales, director of transportation and operations for TxDOT.
The press conference also featured a distracted driving simulation, in which participants can drive and steer a normal car. The “distraction” comes with a pair of glasses that flicker the opacity in where the driver can see and cannot see.
Photos taken by Jocelyn Flores/KTSM
The glasses are used to show what you “see” when you are not paying attention on the road. Many participants of the simulation either crashed into other cars or drove hesitantly.
According to TxDOT, there was a total of 2,611 traffic crashes with a distracted driver in El Paso last year, resulting in nine deaths and 32 serious injuries.
From 2022 to 2023, the number of crashes involving a distracted driver increased to 45 percent and serious injuries from those crashed also jumped to 42 percent, according to TxDOT.
Here are some tips that TxDOT has shared to not be a distracted driver:
Don’t look at your phone. Put it away or place it where you are not easily able to reach it
If you need to send a message or take a call, pull over to a safe location and come to a complete stop.
Tell friends, family and coworkers that you won’t respond to calls or texts while driving.
Any distraction, anything that takes your eyes and mind of the road, can be deadly. It can be a phone, food or a conversation your having with someone in the car.
To learn more distracted driving and how you can prevent it, you can click here.
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