Today there was a very exciting Twitter party hosted by Kelly Wallace from CNNLiving and co-hosted amongst a handful or road safety advocates and Fix The Toaster.
I was thrilled to have the conversation spotlighted by someone in the media so thank you Kelly Wallace and CNN.
The main point that a lot of us kept saying over and over is that parents need to model good behavior and clearly we are failing.
I mentioned how surprised parents are when I state that car crashes are the number 1 cause of death to young people. Another professional responded saying she's seen that reaction multiple times.
Parents have got to get this message. Car crashes are avoidable, mostly, they are killing our kids and we are treating it like a fatalistic event, well shucks, accidents happen. This is not the case. We need to a mental shift in the way we think about driving. I hope more of these Twitter parties continue.
Here a few interesting tweets from the one hour conversation.
"We need a culture change, Sadly it is just too inconvenient for people to accept this fact Everyone think they are the exception" #CNNParents
— Jennifer Smith (@Distractionadv) January 23, 2014
"Agree @SheBuysCars. Parents can use news like @justinbieber arrest as opportunity 2 talk w/kids about making good choices. #CNNParents"
— CNN Living (@CNNLiving) January 23, 2014
"The presence of teen passengers in the vehicle increases the already high crash risk of young drivers. #distracteddriving #cnnparents..."
— TIRF Canada (@TIRFCANADA) January 23, 2014
"@CNNLiving If parents participate in teens driver ed, they are less likely 2 B involved in a crash, yet most parents don't. #CNNParents"
— Laurie Hevier (@lauriehevier) January 23, 2014
"@CNNLiving model good driving and be their passenger as much as possible to coach them #CNNParents"
— Barb Dunn (@bajeand) January 23, 2014
"@FixTheToaster license plates of IMATXTR should b required for 6 mos for drivers caught texting Shame them into better behavior #CNNParents"
— Mike Henderson (@mhenderson33) January 23, 2014
My mom wz texting & driving & I had to tell her to stop! It then inspired me to take action to spread the message! @CNNLiving #CNNParents
— Tristan Nunez Racing (@tristannunez) January 23, 2014
Parents should know car crashes are #1 killer of teens. They worry about drugs, pregnancy, etc. Driving safety should be top! #cnnparents
— NSC (@NSCsafety) January 23, 2014