At North Penn High School, Students Get Sobering Look at Distracted Driving
By Steve Tawa
LANSDALE, Pa. (CBS) -- Two accident-scene police investigators paid a visit to North Penn High School in Lansdale today, to give new drivers some key tips about safe driving habits.
Pennsylvania state trooper Morgan Crummy, of the Skippack Barracks, was encouraging them to buckle up and put down the social media gadgets.
Crummy set the tone for the 11th graders by playing a 911 call -- an intense exchange between a dispatcher and a young girl who had just witnessed her girlfriend losing control of a car and crashing.
As the call is heard, still photos of the accident scene were shown.
Trooper Crummy then asked, "Who here has known anyone who died in a car accident?"
Six teens raised their hands. Crummy put her hand up too.
"I lost my best friend to a crash two years ago," she told the students.
Hatfield Township sergeant David McCreesh then gave them a scenario of driving on Route 309 and being distracted -- by texting, using the phone, or fiddling with the radio.
"At 55 miles per hour, how many feet per second are you traveling? It's roughly 75 feet per second," he noted.
McCreesh says a distracted driver could travel the length of a football field before realizing it, and that could result in a deadly accident.
