Hill, 17, is one of six teens nationwide advising AT&T on its “It Can Wait” campaign to keep drivers from texting on the road. She’s also a junior at W.T. Woodson High School in Fairfax. What do some adults fail to understand about the problem?
They don’t realize how much people text all the time. I don’t think my mom texts as much as I do, so they don’t realize how often kids get texts in the car and how distracting it can be.
What don’t teens get about the danger of texting while driving?
I think you don’t realize how fast you’re going. There’s this statistic I learned doing this, that if you look down and start texting for five seconds, and you’re going 60 mph, you go the length of a football field. That hit home for me because I go to football games and know how long the field is, and it’s just crazy you could drive that far without looking at the road.
So what kind of ideas are you and the other members of the Youth Advisory Panel brainstorming?
Well, there’s a bunch of fliers that can be put up around the school. We [on the teen panel] came up with putting the fliers on cars in the student parking lot because when they’re leaving school they’ll see them. Some of the kids I’ve been working with have their schools doing TV commercials or sayings things on their morning announcements.
What do you do when you get a text on the road?
I turn off my phone while I’m driving.
And when you’re a passenger and a friend who’s driving gets a text?
If I’m in the car with someone who wants to text while they’re driving, I will take the phone from them. I’ll send the text for them if I have to.
— Lisa Gartner
