Barrington Proclaims Sept. 19 Drive 4 Pledges Day

September 19 will be Drive 4 Pledges Day in Barrington, a day to encourage residents to sign a pledge to never text and drive.

The Board of Trustees recently passed a proclamation designating Thursday, September 19 as Drive 4 Pledges Day. 

The day is a national initiative by It Can Wait to raise awareness about the danger of texting and driving while obtaining pledges from people not to do it. It Can Wait’s website has information, videos and the pledge, which can also be done through Facebook and Twitter.

According to the village’s proclamation, 1.8 million people have committed to never text and drive through ItCanWait.com.

Trustee Robert Windon, chair of the health and public safety committee, read the proclamation that highlighted the following statistics and facts:

• 98 percent of the population knows sending texts while driving is not safe yet 50 percent of drivers do it anyway.
• 40 percent of drivers who text while driving call it a habit.
• A Virginia Tech study found those who send texts while driving are 23 times more likely to crash.

As much as Windon agrees with the proclamation, he worries that people will ignore all the other dangerous things they do in a car because “we don’t have a proclamation about putting your make-up on or eating or turning the stereo on, reading the newspaper or reading a book….I’ve seen it all,” he said.

The two biggest issues out there are drunk driving and texting while driving but don’t ignore everything else, he said.

“The moral is pay attention to what you are doing on the road,” Windon said.