Film freshman Eric Dachman’s award-winning video on text messaging while driving is not the typical public service announcement.

The video opens by showing a teenager getting into his car and backing out of a driveway. As he drives down the street, the word “wassup” sprawls across the screen.

“nm, [nothing much] and you?” the driver responds in a text message.

The conversation, written entirely in abbreviated text-message style Web slang, continues until text fills the screen, implying that the teenager has stopped paying attention to driving and shifted his
focus to planning a weekend outing.

The screen fades to black just as the car is about to hit a child crossing the road.

The video netted Dachman a $5,000 scholarship from Bridgestone Tire Company’s Safety Scholars Program.

Dachman said he picked the topic of text messaging while driving because he feels it is not addressed as much as it should be.

“I’ve seen tons of drunk driving videos,” Dachman said. “Most people understand the dangers of drunk driving, but I don’t think they realize the dangers of texting and driving.”

Bridgestone spokeswoman Susan Sizemore said Dachman’s choice of texting while driving and his original approach distinguished his video from the more than 800 other submissions.

“His message was right on the mark,” she said. “The production was great and so was the way he used texting to convey the message. That really caught the attention of our team.”

According to the Safety Scholars Program Web site, about 12,000 online votes were tallied, and Dachman was declared the winner.

Sizemore said Dachman’s video is being sent to an advertising agency, which could opt to remake the commercial or run it in full. Either way, she said, it will be aired on national television.

The Safety Scholars Program started in 2006 as an essay contest.

Bridgestone changed the format two years ago because they felt young people would pay more attention to television commercials and online videos than essays, Sizemore said.

“We decided to take it more to the grassroots, online video [approach], and we’ve found it’s been very successful,” Sizemore said.

Text messaging while driving has been a hot-button issue this summer.

Late last month, a graphic British public service announcement about the consequences of texting while driving was posted on the Web site YouTube and covered by numerous blogs and news outlets.

The 30-minute video is aimed at high school students and shows a group of girls texting and driving, causing a chain of violent car accidents.

A bill introduced in Congress in July would cause states where text messaging while driving is legal to lose hundreds of millions of dollars in federal stimulus money.

On a local level, Sen. Al Melvin, R-Tucson, introduced a bill last legislative session that would ban the practice statewide. The bill failed to get past the Senate floor by one vote, 15-14.

Melvin said he couldn’t get the votes necessary from his own party, which believes the legislation infringes on personal civil liberties.

“I really don’t think it infringes on people’s individual rights,” he said. “If you are driving down the highway with your family in your car and somebody’s coming at you [while] texting and can collide with you and cause death or injury, I really don’t see the personal rights issue.”

Melvin said he plans to introduce similar legislation next regular session, which begins in January.

Dachman said he agrees with Melvin’s proposed legislation. There are few things more dangerous, he said, than texting while driving.

“When people are texting [while driving], they have their eyes completely off the road,” Dachman said. “There’s no reason anyone should be texting while driving.”

Reach the reporter at derek.quizon@asu.edu.