Decide to Drive: Celebrating Five Years of Advocating for Distracted Driving Awareness

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American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons

Mar 31, 2015, 01:01 ET

ROSEMONT, Ill., March 31, 2015 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- The American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons (AAOS) recognized the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers (Auto Alliance) for five years of successful partnership and support in advocating for distracted driving awareness during the AAOS Annual Meeting in Las Vegas on March 25, 2015. Orthopaedic surgeons not only treat, but also want to prevent injuries that can result from distracted driving-related crashes.

Decide to Drive: Celebrating Five Years of Advocating for Distracted Driving Awareness

Since 2009, orthopaedic surgeons and automakers have urged drivers to "Decide to Drive" behind the wheel by avoiding texting, eating, talking on a hand-held phone, applying make-up and engaging in other distractions while driving.

Decide to Drive hosts an online campaign hub, DecidetoDrive.org—where people can report and rate incidences of driver distraction, learn more about the campaign and share an anonymous "wreck-less checklist" with a distracted driver who they know. The campaign also hosts pages on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram to encourage a conversation about distracted driving online.

Highlights from the first five years of the awareness and injury prevention campaign include:

Engaging the public in the conversation via a Harris Interactive survey, a social media-based blog content series, a Twitter party, and catchphrase and Instagram photo contests;
Advertisements: television, radio and print PSAs including a national print PSA featuring the late Olympic heavyweight boxing gold medalist Smokin' Joe Frazier and various high-profile out of home advertising initiatives, a wrapped bus in Washington, DC, and various airports and billboards throughout the country;
Reaching students and educators via school curricula and contests distributed to 5th and 6th grade classrooms, and high school teachers, across the U.S., a national student poster contest, a national campaign tour to high schools across the country (Chicago, Ill., Mesa, Ariz., Baltimore, Md., and two in Denver, Colo.) to start the conversation about distracted driving featuring an orthopaedic surgeon spokesperson and an improv troupe; and
Special Events: engagement and pledge drive at the 2012 Chicago Auto Show, a nationwide letter-to-the-editor initiative in partnership with AAOS State Orthopaedic Society Presidents; and a social media engagement booth on site at the AAOS' 2015 Annual Meeting in Las Vegas.