{"id":15585,"date":"2016-10-19T17:10:59","date_gmt":"2016-10-19T21:10:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/?p=15585"},"modified":"2016-10-19T17:10:59","modified_gmt":"2016-10-19T21:10:59","slug":"former-student-returns-home-to-fight-growing-epidemic","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/former-student-returns-home-to-fight-growing-epidemic\/","title":{"rendered":"Former student returns home to fight growing \u201cepidemic\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Brock Weir<\/strong><\/p>\n

Little more than a year ago, Darren Mason was just like any number of those \u201cabsolute idiots\u201d you see on the road every day.
\nHe was something of a slave to technology texting and driving, but last July a personal tragedy helped transform his life and now the former Aurora student is taking his message on the road to make distracted driving a thing of the past.
\nMr. Mason, 49, a graduate of St. Andrew\u2019s College, returned to his old stomping grounds Friday with a simple, universal language: keep your eyes on the road.
\nLast year, he lost a very close friend, Dave Lash, and his father, Anthony Lash, in a car crash caused by a 17-year-old distracted driver. His friend\u2019s daughter, close in age to Darren\u2019s own, survived the crash.
\n\u201c[Our friends] got together a year ago to remember Dave and we said it looks like there is an epidemic of texting and driving,\u201d said Mr. Mason before delivering a speech to the entire St. Andrew\u2019s College student body. \u201cDave was such a warm, great guy. Like everybody, he had his stuff, we all have our stuff to deal with, but he never showed it.\u201d
\nTo honour Dave\u2019s memory, Darren and his friends decided to pool their resources to launch a grassroots \u201cEyes on the Road\u201d campaign distributing wristbands and spearheading an awareness campaign so drivers \u2013 and passengers \u2013 follow that simple message and stow their phones.
\n\u201cThe hardest part was realising I was an absolute idiot beforehand for texting and driving,\u201d explained Mr. Mason. \u201cNow the phone goes in the glove box. On the one hand, technology is great and everything is Bluetooth, and you can use Siri without even going to your phone. In some regards, technology has helped you but on the other hand, technology has allowed you to see cat videos when you\u2019re driving. It\u2019s quite a bit of that two-sided sword.
\n\u201cPart of the tragedy was the driver whose car left its lane and ran into Dave\u2019s was charged with distracted driving at 17 years old. I have a boy who is 17 and when he gets into the car I know he is looking for that song on Spotify. We can\u2019t do it. Nobody can handle doing the multitasking, but the number of hits young people are getting on their phone [is] like a drug. I get it, but what can I do to help prevent these tragedies?\u201d
\nComing back to his school last week, he Mr. Mason said he was not just trying to target kids and tell them to keep their eyes on the road, but also feel \u201cempowered\u201d to go home and tell their parents, grandparents and anybody they see to shape up.
\n\u201cI want them to have the courage to tell people, \u2018You\u2019re playing Russian Roulette, but not with a gun. It\u2019s a grenade,\u201d he said. \u201cI struggled a bit [with the message] because here I am going to go in front of a school and [the reaction could be], \u2018Here\u2019s this dad, this old guy, thanks, Pops,\u2019 but I wanted the message to be, \u2018It\u2019s not just you, it\u2019s the people around you, the people you care for, family members,\u2019 and give them a message that empowers them and makes them realise they can make a difference, they can control the situation, and realise that it is socially unacceptable now to text and drive. It\u2019s not cool.\u201d
\nAnd, following the assembly, this message will be on the wrists of every student who each received a band to wear or dangle from their rear-view window.
\nBefore his graduation from SAC in 1986, Mr. Mason said he still remembers one assembly where a man came to give a talk about drinking and driving. At that point, he said, it was becoming a particular epidemic among youth. The man shared a story about how he lost a friend to a drunk driver and it stuck with him. Nearly 20 years later, he is carrying on this legacy by imparting this same experience \u2013 albeit with a different root problem \u2013 with the students of today.
\n\u201cI wish I didn\u2019t have to go to Dave\u2019s funeral and I wish I didn\u2019t have to see the look on his daughter\u2019s face,\u201d he said. \u201cTragedy is going to happen, I get it, but this was truly senseless. It was not his time. [The driver] is probably a really good kid, innocent, a nice guy with good friends, who liked sports. He wasn\u2019t evil, he was just distracted.
\n\u201cIt is everybody\u2019s responsibility to change this epidemic and we all have the power to do it. Knowing we all know it is a stupid thing, let\u2019s change the dynamic. Let\u2019s change people\u2019s mindsets and let\u2019s change this epidemic.\u201d
\nA grassroots campaign, as \u201cEyes on the Road\u201d gains momentum, Mr. Mason said he and his group would like to see this grow into a global awareness campaign geared towards millennials. Interest has already been shown in countries ranging from the United Kingdom to Turkey and here at home they would love to have their wristbands distributed through the school systems and by police at RIDE checks. For more information visit www.eyesotr.com.<\/p>\n\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"mail\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Little more than a year ago, Darren Mason was just like any number of those \u201cabsolute idiots\u201d you see on the road every day.
\nHe was something of a slave to technology texting and driving, but last July a personal tragedy helped transform his life and now the former Aurora student is taking his message on the road to make distracted driving a thing of the past. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":15538,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[4,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-15585","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-general_news","category-news"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/10\/2016-10-20-05.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3D2k4-43n","publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-05-06 01:27:40","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15585","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15585"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15585\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15538"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15585"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15585"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15585"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}