(Houston, TX) To coincide with Distracted Driving Awareness Month, the Houston personal injury law firm of Abraham, Watkins, Nichols, Agosto, Aziz & Stogner is sponsoring its 7 th Annual Text Free Texas Scholarship Contest during the month of April. The purpose of the scholarship contest is to raise awareness about the dangers of distracted driving, specifically texting while driving, among teen drivers.
Each year, Abraham Watkins invites four different Houston high schools to participate in the Text Free Texas Scholarship Contest. The high schools participating this year are Chavez High School, East Early College High School, Kashmere High School, and Mount Carmel Academy. During the month of April, driving-age students from these schools will submit pledges to our firm about why they commit to not text and drive. At the end of the month, our firm will select the best pledge from each school and award those students with a $250 scholarship. The four scholarship winners will be announced the first week of May.
Distracted driving is dangerous and causes fatalities and injuries on the road every day. In 2017, 3,166 fatalities were reported to be caused by crashes involving distracted driving. Although distracted driving can take on many different forms, cellphone use is a top distraction and is a major cause of motor vehicle accidents in the United States. Texting while driving is especially dangerous as reading or sending a text message is estimated to take a driver’s eyes off the road for five seconds, which is the amount of time it would take to travel the length of a football field at 55 mph with eyes closed. In addition, many studies show that texting while driving is more dangerous than driving with a blood alcohol concentration of .08%.
The Text Free Texas Scholarship Contest targets teen drivers as they are particularly at risk for distracted driving accidents. Teen drivers are the youngest and least experienced drivers on the road and are among the 16- to 24-year-old age group in which handheld cellphone use while driving is most common. The attorneys of Abraham Watkins have seen the devastating consequences of cellphone use while driving and hope the contest will encourage young drivers to not text and drive in order to keep everyone safer on the road.
To learn more about the Text Free Texas Scholarship Contest, visit www.TextFreeTexas.com or contact Madison Kauffman at (713) 222-7211.