CLARKSVILLE, Tenn. – Rossview Middle School student Jake Ansel isn’t old enough to drive yet, but he’s helping get the message out about the dangers of texting while driving.
Earlier this school year, Ansel was attending a CMCSS event when he visited a booth operated by Kenwood High School students involved in the Be In The Zone (BITZ) campaign, sponsored by Monroe Carrell Jr. Children’s Hospital at Vanderbilt. The Kenwood students were passing out pledge forms for the middle school students to take home. The idea was to spark a dialogue with the drivers in their families.
“The pledge forms had statistics on them about the dangers of being distracted by your phone while you are operating a vehicle,” said Amy Jackson, Kenwood’s BITZ sponsor. “A lot of people don’t realize that you are 23 times more likely to be involved in a wreck when you text and drive.” Jackson added that many of the middle school students who talked to the Kenwood BITZ team stated that their parents often get distracted by phones when driving.
Ansel took the pledge form home, got family members to agree to pledge not to text and drive, turned in the form and was chosen as the winner of the Kenwood pledge contest. This week, the Kenwood BITZ team visited Rossview Middle and awarded Ansel and his family t-shirts as their prize. But the real prize, according to Jackson, is that because of Ansel’s willingness participate in spreading the message fewer people will be texting on local streets.