GSU Students Getting Crash Course on Distracted Driving

(Photo: XtheText Facebook)

Georgia State University students are getting a crash course on the dangers of distracted driving on Wednesday, October 7.

In partnership with the Georgia Department of Transportation’s DriveAlert ArriveAlive campaign, Allstate “Reality Rides®” is making a pit-stop in Atlanta on its tour of 25 cities across America. Reality Rides is a distracted driving simulator that aims to prevent these avoidable collisions. In its third year, the campaign builds awareness about the dangers of distracted driving and offers tips and information on how to be safer behind the wheel.

This year, there have been 959 traffic fatalities on Georgia roads, up from 833 fatalities in 2014. To help combat these tragedies, Reality Rides is coming to the Georgia State campus on Wednesday, October 7 from 11am to 3pm.

“We’ve got a real issue today on Georgia’s roads. If we continue at this rate, we could see over 1,200 fatalities by the end of the year. That would be the first increase in Georgia in nine years,” said Georgia DOT Commissioner Russell McMurry. “That’s just unacceptable – especially when many of these crashes can be prevented by changing driver behavior.”

A survey of more than 4,500 people who experienced Reality Rides’ simulation shows that 69 percent learned more about distracted driving, and 85 percent found the program “fun and effective.”

Reality Rides features a real but stationary car equipped with virtual reality technology that displays a responsive animated environment on a curved LED television embedded in the windshield. Using the steering wheel, gas and brake pedals, the driver is tasked with driving while also attempting to text, talk on the phone and enter navigation system directions. Participants are given traffic “tickets” that reveal potential infractions a driver could receive if the experience happened in real life, and have the opportunity to take the Allstate X the TXT® pledge to not text and drive.