Tag: #ruffdrivesafe

Hosted by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, Bill presented Ruff’s distracted driving project at an event looking at innovation in road safety. The project’s 3 million+ video views and unusual approach seemed to resonate with many of the attendees – national, state and local folks in law enforcement, transport and public health.

Bill then also joined a lively panel with researchers, psychologists, a judge, doctors and public health specialists to dig into the challenges of reducing road deaths (currently 32,000 per year in the US, and rising).

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This comes on a day that NHTSA has also made steps towards driverless cars.

 

Ruff’s new Distracted Driving program got its official launch in Hartford with a museum event that included kids, federal and state safety officials, WGBHers, and kids playing games and taking a safe driving pledge. And Ruff was there too.

“We understand that the proliferation of mobile devices means that this will be a difficult habit for people to break, which is why we are advocating for our best, and most vocal allies — our children — to speak up,” says Connecticut DOT Commissioner James P. Redeker.

“Connecticut has been a national leader in the field of distracted driving prevention. This partnership with WGBH represents our state’s continued commitment to finding innovative ways to connect with the public and educate them that this behavior presents a real danger to them and their families. The integration of the popular character Ruff Ruffman represents another way to change behavior by encouraging non-driving age children to tell their parents not to text and drive. This is a terrific complement to our existing distracted driving programming.”