Carl Maronich (Host): Distracted driving contributes to 80% of car accidents, and every year about 3000 people die in car accidents involving distracted driving according to the CDC. Joining us today to talk about the initiatives Riverside is taking to educate the community about the dangers of distracted driving is Dana Arseneau, trauma program coordinator.

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Host: Welcome back to the Well Within Reach podcast, brought to you by Riverside Healthcare. I'm your host, Carl Maronich. And today, I'm fortunate to be joined by Dana Arseneau, Riverside's Trauma Program Coordinator, to talk about the dangers of distracted driving and the programs we at Riverside offer to the community to help with this issue. Dana, welcome to the podcast.

Dana Arseneau: Thanks for having me.

Host: Glad to have you here. And let's start by talking a little bit about your background.

Dana Arseneau: Yeah, I'm an ER nurse. I started at Riverside in the ER probably about 10 years ago. I've been working with the community outreach for almost just as long as the distracted driving programs.

Host: Wow, that's a long time, and to be devoted to this topic, which is great to have you here to talk about it. And let's start by kind of getting some definitions here. What classifies as distracted driving?

Dana Arseneau: Well, there's definitely a lot of different types of distractions when we're on the road. Cell phones, we see all the time, and that's probably the most obvious. But there's also other physical distractions like eating while you're in the car or driving with your dog on your lap, those types of things. And then, there's the mental and emotional distractions as well that I feel like we kind of forget about too.

Host: Yeah, I've seen all that, done some of that, I'd be ashamed to admit to some of that. But, you know, the other thing that goes through my mind when we talk about this is, you know, now there's technology, there's Bluetooth, so you don't have to be holding your phone. But still, just being in a conversation can be distracting, I think, and I'm sure that comes up in the work you do.

Dana Arseneau: Absolutely. Absolutely.

Host: Yeah. So, there are certain age groups perhaps that maybe are more likely. I'm not young anymore. I'm guilty of some of these things. But talk a little bit about the work you do and the age groups that you get involved with.

Dana Arseneau: Absolutely. We focus primarily on teenagers. We all know that they're very tech savvy with their phones and it's kind of their lifeline. So, the more comfortable we are with our phones, the more easily we are distracted while we're driving. It's very easy just to hear that beep go off and then pick it up and then just be completely immersed in that conversation.

So, we do a lot of outreach with the teenagers, but it truly is kind of everyone across the board that if you just literally drive down the road, you'll see tons of people on their cell phones. There's a couple studies that we talk about too when we do these classes. So, for example, just to read a text, it takes your eyes off the road for five to six seconds. If you're going 55 miles per hour, that covers the entire length of a football field. So, you can see how accidents happen.

Host: Sure. When you're out and you're working with kids and talking to them about it, what's their first reaction to this? I mean, do they like, "Oh no, it's not me," or "I can do it. It's no problem." What do you get from them when you talk about this?

Dana Arseneau: They are surprisingly very honest. If we ask them how many people have been in the car with someone who's been on their cell phone or been distracted, almost everybody's hand goes up in the air. I feel like they realize that it's something that's going on for sure, and something that they can try and avoid. And I feel like we're doing some good work with it.

Host: Yeah. With kids, young kids, the number and the passengers in the car with them certainly can be a big distraction. In fact, I believe there are some laws about new drivers, how many kids they can have in the car with them. Is that right?

Dana Arseneau: Yeah. For the first year, you can only have one additional kid in the car besides your siblings. And there is actually a research study that shows for every additional child that a teenager puts in the car with them for that first year, it increases their chances of getting in an accident by almost 700%.

Host: Oh my gosh. Yeah, that's scary stuff. Well, we know it's a problem. Nationally, it's everywhere. Let's talk about our community. What are you seeing directly in this community related to all this?

Dana Arseneau: Yeah. We see all age ranges from car accidents. And summertime is definitely the biggest too. It's stated that the deadliest 100 days for teenagers are from Memorial Day to Labor Day. So, we usually see an increase right around this time throughout the summer with car accidents. And truly, it's all ages, it's not just teenagers.

Host: Sure. And you see the result of it in the ER I'm sure many times, that's what's behind some of the people that are coming in.

Dana Arseneau: Yeah. And it's preventable. So yeah, we really don't want them to have to come in for that stuff.

Host: Right. And to that point, let's talk a little bit about parents. The work you do, you go out to schools and interact with the kids. But what about the parents? What work do you do with them? And what do parents need to be thinking about with regard to all this?

Dana Arseneau: So, the first thing that parents can do to make sure that their kids are safe in the car is to practice safe driving themselves. We know that when our kids are really young, they watch us.

Host: Set an example.

Dana Arseneau: Set that example, absolutely. And then, you can also help them to set themselves up for success. So once they start driving, teach them about it. Make sure that their phone is put away. Get the apps, like the Do Not Disturb While Driving. Make sure that's on there, so that it's not alerting as they're going and it's not a distraction.

Host: Yeah. Other ways to kind of counteract or other things you might talk about in some of the sessions and classes that you do.

Dana Arseneau: Just lots of kind of setting yourself up for success and thinking things through, not only for yourself, but for anyone else who's driving. So, I tell the kids in every class, like, "If your mom heads out to the grocery store and you want ice cream, give her some time to get there first. Don't text her." You also don't want to be that distraction because you're texting as you're going. And then, just making sure that they know what all of the distractions are. You know, usually, those teenage kids are super excited to go get their coffees in the morning and drive around with them. And it can be a distraction.

Host: Sure. Yeah. Well, you mentioned the timing between Memorial Day and Labor Day. And that I would think that almost even starts a little earlier as prom season kind of is, which is now, right?

Dana Arseneau: Yup.

Host: Yep. I know there's work that the ER has done with regard to impaired driving by going out to the schools and kind of setting up an example of things. Do you do the same thing for distracted driving or is that part of the same messaging when you're talking about impaired driving?

Dana Arseneau: Yeah. So, we at Riverside offer two kind of separate programs with that. Prom Crashes, they're also called Road to Reality, or we call them Pre-Prom because we do them usually right around prom season. Those are dependent on the school. So if the school wants to focus on drinking and driving, then we focus the distraction on that. If they want to focus on texting and driving or even FaceTiming and driving, then we focus it on that. And that's a huge initiative that's put on in collaboration with all kinds of community support and it's really great and impactful for the kids.

Host: Yeah, a lot of things to be concerned about. Great to see that you guys are helping lead the way to kind of solve some of these issues. We're going to take a little break now and come back and talk more to Dana.

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And now, back to the podcast with Dana Arseneau from Riverside, our Trauma Program Coordinator. We're talking about distracted driving. So Dana, tell us again what initiatives Riverside has to stop distracted driving and get the message across how important an issue this is.

Dana Arseneau: Absolutely. So, we've got two major initiatives. We've got the Pre-Prom or the Road To Reality that usually happens right around this time. We can also do it during like homecoming season as well. And then, we have our distracted driving classes. So, we've got a group of volunteers from the ER that go out to local driver's ed classes and we teach them all about what different types of distractions are. We share some of the statistics that we've talked about already today. And then, we kind of tell them what happens on the ER side if they're injured and we want to give them a robust idea of what these distractions, what can come from them down the line. So, not only the injuries that come with them, but what happens if I have to get transferred and what's the monetary value to this. Everything that adds up with it.

Host: Yeah, there's a lot there. Can you talk about the Pre-prom Mock Accidents and how that all started?

Dana Arseneau: Yeah. They started so long ago that I couldn't even figure out what date, very, very long time ago. I've been out of high school myself for quite some time and I can remember them doing it in my school. So, way back in the 1900s.

Host: It was the horse and buggy they were talking about though, not cars.

Dana Arseneau: Yes. Yeah, we were crashing horse and buggies. It's a great program. We really try and make sure that we are making that connection with the kids. It's fantastic to see their emotions come through because they can almost immerse themselves into the actual scene and what's going on in front of them.

Host: Yeah. The seriousness of it is really brought home it sounds like. Talk a little bit about what you've seen that really, again, you think makes it most effective.

Dana Arseneau: Yeah. There's a lot of different things that go into play with it. So for them, for the students to be able to sit there and see one of their classmates or their friends get maybe like arrested and do like field sobriety. It's very impactful to see one of their friends pass away and their parents' reaction to that is heartbreaking and very impactful. And just for them to be able to hear everything kind of connected together again, much like the other distracted driving program, to give them a well-rounded idea of what can happen from these small decisions and choices that they make.

Host: Yeah. It really brings the reality of it home in a pretty significant way because it's all serious stuff.

Dana Arseneau: It absolutely is.

Host: No doubt about it. Well, back to the parents. What can they do? Whether it's distracted driving or impaired driving, as we come up to this season here heading towards summer, what can parents do?

Dana Arseneau: Yep. Talk to your kids about it, set that great example, and then make sure that we're using the technologies and these apps to make sure that they're safe.

Host: Oh, great. Well, Dana, I think we've covered everything. Is there anything we didn't cover that you want to mention?

Dana Arseneau: Yeah, I got one more thing. Riverside has been so great with the community and we do these outreach and these prevention programs and we offer a scholarship each spring for any students who've been involved with either one of these classes or events along the way, just to kind of see what they've learned and kind of reward them for paying attention through it and making changes. And then just to know that these classes aren't necessarily just for students and for teenagers. So like if you feel like your church group or your job would benefit from the distracted driving class, we can always come out and do that as well. They're completely free.

Host: That's great. If somebody wanted to get in touch with you about one of those classes, how can they do that?

Dana Arseneau: Yep. The easiest way to get in touch with me is through email. My email is rhc.net darseneau@rhc.net

Host: Well, let's spell all that for folks.

Dana Arseneau: Yeah. D-A-R-S-E-N-E-A-U@rhc.net. D-A-R-S-E-N-E-A-U @rhc.net.

Host: And that spells Dana Arseneau. Dana is the trauma coordinator at Riverside, does great work. Distracted driving, impaired driving, hugely important topics that we make sure our young people understand the dangers of. And Dana and her team are doing great work to let the world know about that. So, thank you for being our guest today.

Dana Arseneau: Thanks for having me.

Host: And thank you for listening to the Well Within Reach podcast. I'm Carl Maronich.