May 11, 2009 7:36 pm US/Eastern
Course Shows Dangers Of Texting While Driving
WEYMOUTH (WBZ) ―
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To make his point, Bogart put WBZ-TV reporter Bill Shields into one of his cars at the old Weymouth Naval Air Station. They drove out onto an old runway, where orange cones had been set up to create an obstacle course.
WBZ
How many of us use our cell phones or text while driving?
"Rear-end collisions are the number one type of crash in Massachusetts," says Brandon Bogart of the In-Control Advanced Driving School, "and using a cell phone makes it an unbelievable problem," he says.
To make his point, Bogart put WBZ-TV reporter Bill Shields into one of his cars at the old Weymouth Naval Air Station. They drove out onto an old runway, where orange cones had been set up to create an obstacle course.
Then, Bogart put a cell phone in Shields' hand...and told him to drive 60 mph at the cones. Shields hit the brakes, and made it through the course, but not without hitting several cones. "If those cones were a car, I would've demolished it," said Shields.
"It's part of our driver's ed," said Bogart. "They know how dangerous it is to drive while using a cell phone, but we show them how disastrous it can be."
Shields was then put through a simulated tailgating situation. Driving down the runway at 55 mph, with another car to his left, Shields was told to stay two car-lengths in back, keeping the other car on his left.
Then the other driving suddenly hit the brakes, and Shields did too, but still sailed 25 yards past it.
Tailgating could've been fatal, and if a driver was looking down at a cell phone? "No chance," said Shields.
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