Tweet About Texting and Driving, Get Called out by NHTSA

We all know that you shouldn’t text and drive. In many states, it’s even illegal to be caught doing so. Distracted driving does cause accidents, and those accidents sometimes cause death or serious injury. You really, really shouldn’t do it. But sometimes, we all do.

But if you do do it, and then tweet about it, you’re bound to get a reprimand from NHTSA. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) is the government department tasked with vehicle safety, and they’re taking to Twitter to target people who openly admit they text and drive.

While there may not be any legal consequences to being called out by NHTSA, you do at least end up in the Twitter timeline of everyone who follows the organization.

"That's a poor and dangerous decision" #justdrive @Guerlicious

— NHTSA (@NHTSAgov) April 28, 2016

From a technological standpoint, it’s really easy to find these people. Many software technologies out there access Twitter’s massive data stream and can search for keywords. Clearly here “text and drive” is one of those terms.

Well, it's not. Texting and driving's not worth it, @kenbonowitz. Stay off your phone and #justdrive.

— NHTSA (@NHTSAgov) April 28, 2016

The NHTSA Twitter profile has over 38,000 followers, too. So if you do get called out by them, some people are going to notice. It’s an interesting technique and I do commend the government for trying new and unique ways to reach people who do text and drive and try to get them to stop doing so.

It’ll be interesting to see how their #justdrive program continues.