Leigh Charlton, News Editor
@leighcourant
The Safe Driving event, courtesy of the PFA, will be returning to NCHS the week of March 6 to spread awareness about safe driving habits. According to Principal Egan’s Weekly Update, students will have the opportunity to ride a seat belt convincer, use distracted driving simulators, and simulate driving under the influence in the school parking lot in a course organized by student resource officer Geoffrey Lambert.
Additionally, 10th-12th grade students will attend an assembly to hear guest speakers Jacy Good and Steve Johnson, both advocates for removing the distraction of cellphones behind the wheel. In 2008, Ms. Good and her parents were involved in a tragic accident as a result of a teenager’s distracted driving. She suffered extensive injuries as well as traumatic brain damage, and both her parents were declared dead at the scene. Nine years later, she and her husband use her story to promote the banning of cellphones while driving. “I’m one of the estimated half a million injuries each year in this country caused by phone use behind the wheel,” Ms. Good said a January 2015 CNN article. “My parents were two of the 5,870 American distracted driving fatalities in 2008. Maybe it’s time for a change, because while my wreck might be just another set of numbers in some ledger, I sure don’t feel like a statistic. I feel like a person whose life was permanently damaged by someone else’s bad and preventable decision.”
An NCHS student that has requested to remain anonymous acknowledged the importance of the Safe Driving event, as she herself had recently been involved in a minor accident. “I think that safe driving week does help because it reminds all of us how easy it is to make a mistake with real repercussions,” she said. “I was lucky because my accident was minor and no one got hurt, but it’s so easy to look the wrong way or lose focus for a second and ruin your life, or maybe someone else’s, forever. I feel like this week just impresses how serious driving should be, because as routine and easy as it becomes there is always the chance that something can go wrong.”
