U of R launches campaign to stop distracted driving

The University of Regina campus is going to be blanketed with warnings about distracted driving for the next little while.

The school launched its campaign on Wednesday, called simply “Don’t text and drive.”

“It’s something that we want to be more preventative in terms of our approach. So that’s why we’re trying to get it out, (to) promote the safety of our students (and) to promote the safety of our community,” said university president Dr. Vianne Timmons.

University of Regina president Dr. Vianne Timmons hands out phone cleaners with the phrase “Don’t text and drive” on Dec. 4, 2019. (Lisa Schick/980 CJME)

She explained U of R students use cellphones a lot and, having seen that October had the largest number of tickets issued for distracted driving yet, the school wanted to get the word out.

“You walk down the halls (and) we should have a campaign ‘Don’t text and walk,’ ” Timmons joked. “I would be guilty of that at times.”

But it’s not just students — Timmons said distracted driving is a problem all around.

“I know that, when I’m driving and I look in a car beside me, I often see someone picking up their phone while driving,” she said. “So I think it’s a societal issue, and our students can help get the message out.”

While she was handing out phone cleaners with the campaign’s slogan on them, Timmons spoke to a student who said he’d recently been involved in a crash on Ring Road. The collision had been caused by distracted driving.

Along with posters and messaging on the walls, floors and banisters around campus, the university has also put out a few videos on the subject. Timmons said they’re a little lighter in feeling.

“We don’t want to be seen as lecturing to our students,” she said. “We want to be seen as engaging our students to help promote the campaign.”

The program will be sticking around for the next few months, but Timmons said the university will be bringing it back every now and then as a reminder over the next few years.