Txting While Driving PSA - Too Graphic or A Must See?

Over the last couple years I’ve yelled at my friends who txt me while driving. I’m not trying to be a jerk or nag you like your mother. I’m simply doing it because I care about you and don’t want to see you hurt or kill someone...or hurt or kill yourself! Plus, I don’t think I could live with myself if something happened to you as a direct result of us exchanging txts while you were driving. I don’t want that mistake on my conscious, that I was on the other end of that phone and aided to the carnage. I want to go out with you on Friday night, not visit you in the hospital or attend your funeral. Let’s be honest, we have grown numb to Public Service Announcements (PSA) and numerous studies that throw statistics at us about the dangers of smoking, having unprotected sex, driving drunk, etc. We hear the numbers, but are we really getting it? Are we truly listening? Apparently not because these problems still exist and they are still killing people! And believe it or not, in today’s modern world the new killer is your cell phone! Talking on your cell phone while driving used to be the deadly killer, but now txting while driving has proven to be even more dangerous! Your risk of crashing increases 23x if you txt while driving! Twenty-three times! It’s actually more deadly than driving drunk! And despite the fact that 17 U.S. states ban txting while driving, you still see people doing it in nearly every car on the road. But perhaps this new PSA originating out of Gwent, Wales will change that.

***WARNING!***
This is a graphic video that is very bloody and violent. It may be disturbing to some viewers.

The over 4 minute long PSA depicts three teen girls giggling over a txt message they are sending while peacefully driving along a country road. Distracted, the driver smashes head-on into another car causing both cars to spin out of control. When the car carrying the teenagers finally comes to a stop, the shaken and bloodied girls exchange dazed glances while a third car careens into the passenger side. The driver’s cries quickly turn into hysterical screams when she finds her friend lying dead next to her, along with another dead friend in the backseat. Then the camera switches to another smashed vehicle and shows a young child inside, asking paramedics why her parents are not waking up. The camera pans once more, this time to a 6-month-old baby still in its car seat, blue eyes wide open and staring. The baby is dead.

The video continues with more police, paramedics and firefighters arriving on the scene. They are cutting through twisted metal to pull bodies from the wreckage - some dead, some barely alive. The teenage txting driver who caused the crash is life-flighted away by helicopter.

Produced by the Gwent Police Department, police locked arms with filmmaker Peter Watkins-Hughes to produce the PSA, titled "COW - The Film That Will Stop You Texting and Driving," named after the character Cassie Cowan, who unleashes the lethal chain of events by txting behind the wheel. While this PSA might be a dramatization, it’s VERY realistic! It sends out a horrible visual to illustrate the dangers of txting while driving. However, Americans can only view this video online because currently it has been deemed "too graphic" to air on U.S. television. In my opinion, that’s a giant mistake. This is EXACTLY what people everywhere in the world need to see! It’s like being scared straight. I was never one to txt (much) while driving, but after watching this video, there is no way I’m sending out a single txt behind the wheel. I’m a risk taker, but this is one risk I’m just not willing to take.

The message here is an obvious one, txting and driving can have tragic consequences. And the more this film is viewed, the better. So please ReTweet this post, Digg it, e-mail it to your friends, link it on Facebook, however you want to share the video would be great. The more people that see this PSA, the more lives that can be saved.