Julie Garner, Founder of Project Yellow Light

The Ad Council has launched a campaign called Project Yellow Light to promote safe driving and eliminate distracted driving, especially among young people. They held a national scholarship competition for high school and college students to create public service ads about safe driving, with a focus on not using cell phones while driving. The founder of Project Yellow Light, Julie Garner, discussed the importance of reaching young drivers through peer-to-peer communication and the goal of saving lives. More information about Project Yellow Light can be found on their website, and winners of the competition will have their work displayed in Times Square. Much of America, of course, including us here in Northwest Jersey, looking to make our next getaway this summer by hitting the open road, packing, of course, the latest tech along with us, a central part to the perfect road trip. But with so many of us making our way onto the roadways across our great state and our great country, it's critical more than ever to drive safely and free of any distractions. And of course, for drivers between 18, 17 and 20 years old, make up about 8% of the drivers in fatal crashes. 11% of all distracted drivers and 16% of drivers distracted by cell phones in fatal crashes. The Ad Council is launching a brand new campaign called Project Yellow Light, and they just had a national contest that just wrapped up with a scholarship competition. They got some really great contributions from young people around the country. And joining me this morning at the RNJ Morning Program with some more details about Project Yellow Light, we have the founder of Project Yellow Light, Julie Garner, who is with me here at RNJ. Julie, good morning. It's Bert Barron, WRNJ Radio in New Jersey. How are you today? I'm doing great, Bert. Thanks so much for having me with you. It's great to speak with you. And this Project Yellow Light, of which you are the founder of, a really important and also a very personal issue for you, just about minimizing, if not completely eliminating, the factors that create distracted driving in our young people. Yeah, we really have our work cut out for us. Basically, this is a national scholarship competition for high school juniors and seniors and college students to create a public service ad that promotes safe driving, with, like you said, an emphasis on not using your cell phone while driving. That is such a difficult group of people to reach. I know for what I do and what I've done for the last 30 or so years, Julie, getting that young person engaged and getting messaging through to them can be very challenging. Maybe this is the way to go with this ad council campaign and some other things that are taking place. Just driving home the importance, no pun intended, of just the real and true real-world dangers of distracted driving. I totally agree, and we feel like that peer-to-peer communication by the youth talking to themselves about this situation is the best way to reach our target audience. So that's exactly what we're doing. We have these young, talented students who create these wonderful messages through their voice in video, radio, and billboard ads to help share the message with their peers and help save lives. Of course, you will hear some of these public service announcements here on RNJ Radio as we support Project Yellow Light as well. That's really a great way to go about it, Julie, because I think word of mouth and recommendations are really a big deal when it comes to getting messaging from one young person to another. They'll take a recommendation maybe from one of their peers or someone in their same age group, and maybe that's one of the things that will lead to the success of this campaign. I hope so. We really, like I said, have our work cut out to make sure we reach everybody because it continues to be a problem. I am waiting for the day where I'm out of a job, where I don't have to do this anymore. But sadly, the crashes continue, and we're just hoping that we can reach as big an audience as possible. Your help in getting the word out is just so great. It's an interesting position to be in where you say, you know what, I wish I didn't have to do what I'm doing because if there was no need for me, that means that things are better, that we address the problem. It's almost like when you run an animal shelter or something. It's like, you know what, I wish I wasn't here. I wish all these pets all had homes and there'd be no need for the service that I'm providing. But as long as the need is going to be there, to know that there's good people that are addressing it, like yourself, of course, is going to make a big difference. Our guest this morning at the RNJ Morning Program, Julie Garner, founder of Project Yellow Light. We're talking about a brand new campaign just released just to kind of raise awareness regarding the dangers, of course, of distracted driving. We've been talking about it for years, but it seems like the conversation just continues to need to take place, especially with our young people and our young drivers as well. If you know any of the lay of the land here in New Jersey, Julie, we're a shore state. We have roads that are packed every weekend with people going to the beaches and whatnot, obviously dominated by young people. What's the message that you would give to them about staying focused on the roads? Just that, stay focused on the road. Put your cell phones away and, you know, just focus your attention on driving, because everybody thinks it's never going to happen to me, and they all think that they're a good driver because they can multitask in the car, and it's just not going to happen that way, and I'm living proof. My son was killed in a car crash when he was just 16 years old, and that's the reason we started this whole campaign, you know, is to keep his memory alive and also save as many other young people as possible from repeating that same demise. Yeah, well, I'm so sorry for your loss, obviously, and if we could keep young people safe going forward, it keeps his name out there, and it makes this work all the more worthwhile, of course. Where can someone get some more information regarding Project Yellow Light, Julie? Everything is contained on our website, projectyellowlight.com. As you mentioned, we just selected our winners and are going to be announcing them in Times Square on Friday of this week, which is so exciting for all the students to have their work shared on the big boards in Times Square, and it's shared nationwide as well through our media partners. Oh, that's nice. Projectyellowlight.com, yes, and the competition opens back up in October, and it's an annual event, so please check it out and, you know, make some money and have a little notoriety as well. Exactly. We're going to get our Jersey students excited and involved and engaged in this, Julie, for the next round of competitions, but good luck with everything in New York this week with the rollout of this, and thank you for your time this morning, and, again, condolences on the loss of your son. But this is noble work that you're doing, so thank you so much for the time today. Thank you for having me.