Television Writers To Be Asked to Promote Anti-Texting Message

Posted on May 24, 2013

Might Hollywood have a role to play in curbing distracted driving across the country?  One Harvard official thinks so, and his previous efforts to reduce drunk driving along our nation’s roadways seem to back up his assertions.

The director of Harvard’s Center for Health Communication is basing his call to action on work done in the 1980s. At that time, he and a group of like-minded individuals worked with various writers and producers in the television industry to get them to promote a message about the importance of having a designated driver.  Those efforts led to references in such revered shows as “Cheers” and others, and the professor says that the term entered the national vocabulary just four years into the effort.

Now, he wants to apply those same tactics to the issue of texting and driving.  He will form an advisory board whose duty it will be to get in touch with those persons behind current television shows.  The board will encourage those parties to drop in lines about people restraining themselves from texting.  The hope is that subtle references to avoiding distracted driving will go much further than a campaign lambasting viewers for their behavior ever would.

Stay tuned to your television screens, and make note of any instances of a driver putting down their phone when they start the vehicle.  It might be the result of this behind-the-scenes safety initiative.

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