As texting from one’s phone while driving can certainly wait, while also help prevent accidents, students from the CIMA educational community have launched an awareness campaign to prevent texting while driving.
“Texting and Driving. It can Wait” is the campaign motto of secondary students from CIMA, who themselves have been sharing the effort with businesses, schools, and public officials from the Navy to City Hall in striving to get their message to the greatest number of people possible. As part of the campaign, the students hope to collect more than 5000 signatures from people making the commitment not to text while driving.
In addition to being part of a national contest with another 6000 entries, the texting awareness campaign aims to send a clear message to drivers that they can wait to respond to a message, or to send a text, protecting both themselves and people around them.
After looking at different topics, with support of CIMA principal Ana Mayra (Anamaida) Rivas, the students decided texting was an important issue to address in Puerto Peñasco. Jesús Alejandro Gutiérrez, who is part of the project, explains, “this was particularly given its social impact as well as how common it is for drivers to text.”
“We want to lead a campaign to create awareness about the issue, and that people not only hurt themselves but those around them. We have a book we ask people to sign, and then give them a ring to put around their thumb, as a way to remember, since that´s the finger used for texting,” he detailed.
The principal of CIMA indicated the idea is to focus the campaign particularly toward high school and university students, as they can already drive and per general statistics are more prone to accidents on the road.
“A message as simple as, ‘What are we going to eat?’ or ‘I love you!’ can be something you can never do again, or you may not even get to see the person who sent it to you,” shared Rivas.
The campaign was both strengthened and taken even deeper to heart after a former CIMA student recently lost her life during an accident in which cell-phone use while driving was a factor.
This gave the campaign a whole new meaning, with the mother of the young woman who died also taking part in the effort. The goal is for the message to reach people so this won’t happen again, explained the organizers.
The topic of texting while driving has also influenced the local administration in Puerto Peñasco, who is beginning to look at possibilities to levy fines on those found using their cellphones while driving.
The CIMA students’ texting awareness campaign, which began in February, will run through March and hopes to hand out stickers along with thumb rings as a way to help remind people not to text while driving. To reach their goal, the students have developed a PowerPoint presentation for both youth and adults. Anyone wishing to have the students visit their offices, organization, schools, or employees, please contact Anamaida Rivas at comunidadcima@outlook.com (Spanish/English)