Today at Yonkers Police Headquarters, Mayor Mike Spano announced that a $20,000.00 grant was awarded to the Yonkers Police Department from State Farm insurance to help raise awareness for distracted driving in 2015. This grant builds on the successful “Eyes on the Road” campaign announced last year. The Mayor was joined by Deputy Chief Francis Intervallo and State Farm Representatives to speak about the dangers associated with distracted driving and how this grant will assist in providing instruction to young drivers in our schools and at community events.

     “State Farm is proud to support the Yonkers Police Department’s ‘Eyes on the Road’ distractive driving program,” said Yonkers State Farm agent, John O’Brien. “Distracted driving is a problem for all drivers, especially teen drivers. We appreciate the important work the Yonkers Police Department is doing to help reduce teen crashes and save lives.” Members of the Yonkers Police Department Training Division will be lecturing and using a driving simulator, which will provide a dynamic training environment to help demonstrate to drivers that distracted driving is dangerous and can result in substantial injury or death on our area roads. “We are thankful to State Farm Insurance for providing us the resources to continue our efforts in teaching our young drivers the risks associated with all forms of distracted driving,” said Mayor Spano. “As we know, for teenagers, getting behind the wheel with a cell phone is more dangerous than being under the influence. I encourage our young residents to take the free class offered by our Yonkers police and learn of the different techniques to avoid accidents and be a better defensive driver.” In addition, Training Division Officers will now be able to bring this important training into school classrooms and community meetings by using a computer game on a laptop. Students will be required to multitask and are required to perform numerous skills at the same time. Once a given task is missed by the student, the game ends, thus highlighting the dangers of operating a vehicle and performing another task at the same time.

   For further information on the “Eyes on the Road” program or to schedule a class, please call the Yonkers Police Department Training Unit at 914-377-7364.

(ATTACHED PHOTO: P.O. DAVID BARCA FROM YPD TRAINING DIVISION SPEAKS ABOUT THE DISTRACTED DRIVING INSTRUCTION PROGRAM WITH MAYOR SPANO, STATE FARM AGENTS, AND MEMBERS OF THE MEDIA)

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Alert sent on 03/27/2015 at 3:32PM EDT

Distracted Driving Press Conference Photo.	Distracted Driving Poster.

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