Drive Only Never Text (D.O.N.T.). Every June is brain injury awareness month. This past June was the launch of the inaugural D.O.N.T. campaign. The campaign reminds drivers of all ages that distracted driving – which includes driving while texting or talking on a cell phone – can lead to car crashes and brain injuries. D.O.N.T. is led by the Ontario Brain Injury Association (OBIA), in partnership with participating local community Brain Injury Associations, the Ontario Ministry of Transportation and the Ontario Trial Lawyers Association (OTLA).

Trial lawyers, like myself, are involved because we see first hand the devastating effects of brain injury and other serious injuries as a result of car crashes. Texting while driving dramatically increases the risk of being involved in a car crash. If drivers concentrate only on driving and not texting while driving, the number of car collisions and in turn serious injuries can be reduced. Here are some quick facts that may be of interest:

• Brain injury is the leading killer and disabler of people under the age of 44 and kills more people under the age of 20 than any other causes combined (US Centre for Disease Control)
• Acquired brain injury is 15 times more common than spinal cord injury, 30 times more common than breast cancer and 400 times more common than HIV/AIDS (US Centre for Disease Control)
• 40 percent of Acquired Brain Injury survivors sustained their brain injury as a result of an automobile collision (2012 OBIA Impact Report)
• Distracted driving is cited as a causal factor in 30 to 50 percent of traffic collisions in Ontario, but is probably much higher due to under-reporting (Ontario Provincial Police)
• Texting while driving is the same as driving blind for 5 seconds at a time (VA Tech Transportation Institute). In three seconds, at sixty kilometres per hour you travel fifty metres – that’s the distance across half a football field. (Ontario Ministry of Transportation)
• In 2012, 83 people were killed in motor vehicle collisions with OPP jurisdiction in which distracted driving was a causal factor. (Ontario Provincial Police)

I’ve taken the pledge to Drive Only Never Text. Will you?

Kristian Bonn
Bonn Law Office
Personal Injury Lawyer
OTLA Director