Sgt. John Freitag, of the police department’s traffic unit, addresses students in the high school’s 10th-grade driver’s-ed classes.
Eleven teenage drivers die every day due to texting and driving, township police Sgt. John Freitag told Washington Township High School students during a presentation on driving dangers.
“It’s a problem, and it’s something we stress any time we’re engaged with new drivers,” he said.
Freitag and officer Chris Tarasevich spoke to 10th-grade driver’s-ed classes on Nov. 21 the Republic Bank Performing Arts Center, according to a school press release. Students had recently taken their New Jersey State Driver’s License written test, so driver’s ed teachers Stephanie Knorr and Mike Schatzman collaborated with special education teaching consultant Colleen Black to bring Freitag to the venue.
According to the New Jersey Division of Highway Traffic Safety’s distracted driving statistics, a quarter of teens respond to a text message once or more every time they drive. Some 20% of teens and 10% of parents admit they have extended, multi-message text conversations while driving.
Motor-vehicle crashes were the leading cause of unintentional death for the 15- to 24-year-old age group in the U.S. in 2020. The following year, some 2,116 drivers 15 to 20 years old were killed, and an estimated 203,256 injured in car crashes, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration Transportation.
Drivers 20 and under made up 5.1% of licensed drivers in the country in 2021, yet they made up 8.5% of total drivers in all fatal crashes and 12.6% of drivers in all crashes, according to the statistics.
Freitag – who recently became a sergeant in the police department’s traffic unit – focused his presentation on the impacts of drugs and alcohol while driving, as well as the dangers of distracted driving.
“Understand that in the state of New Jersey, driving is a privilege, not a right,” he advised.
In 22 years with the traffic unit, Freitag has received four Mothers Against Drunk Driving awards, as well as being recognized for having the most DWI (Driving While Intoxicated) arrests in Gloucester County.
During the presentation, he discussed how drivers can obtain points for driving offenses and how multiple offenses can lead to suspended licenses. He went over what officers look for when performing a traffic stop on a potentially intoxicated driver, including showing examples of field-sobriety tests.
Freitag also addressed texting while driving, which is responsible for 25% of all motor-vehicle accidents today. At one point, he had the students pull out their phones to perform a calculation. They found that, at 55 miles per hour, if drivers take their eyes off the road and look at a phone for five seconds, they are driving blind for 417 feet – more than the length of a football field.
“And what happens if a pedestrian walks into the road 250 feet away?” he asked the students. “Yes, you hit them. Texting while driving is six times more dangerous than driving while intoxicated.”
Freitag is a 1996 graduate of the high school, and as sergeant of the traffic unit, he is tasked with investigating fatal crash scenes, among other duties. He recently became certified as a Drug Recognition Expert. Approximately 5,000 officers worldwide – or only 1/10 of 1% of all law-enforcement officers – hold that certification.
