Jeff. Co. Public Health Service employees aim to help prevent distracted driving

Jefferson County Public Health Service employees hope an $18,000 state grant will help prevent young drivers from being distracted while driving a motor vehicle.

Agency Health Planner Faith E. Lustik said the yearlong grant from the Governor’s Traffic Safety Committee aims to educate young adults ages 16 to 20 about the dangers of distracted driving.

“In that group are new drivers,” she said. “If we can impact new drivers at the beginning then we can have less injuries throughout their lifespan.”

The grant will allow a public health educator to go into driver education and health classes to teach young drivers about response time.

“They think they can text and drive, but it only takes three seconds for someone to run out in front of you,” Ms. Lustik said. “It’s not just about texting; it’s music, other people in the car and other distractions.”

She said Public Health already had been into a few driver education classes, and will attempt to reach all county schools with driver education and health classes throughout the remainder of the school year.

Last year, the agency received $20,800 for the same effort. According to a Public Health briefing summary for the Jefferson County Board of Legislators, distracted-driving presentations reached 3,279 high school students in the county for the 2010-11 school year. Information also was provided to 3,417 students at Jefferson Community College.

Ms. Lustik said while people may not think of Public Health as doing injury prevention, its distracted-driving effort is a top priority because of all the young drivers it affects. According to the most recent data from 2009 from the U.S. Department of Transportation, 5,474 people were killed on the nation’s roads and an estimated 448,000 were injured in motor vehicle crashes that involved distracted driving.