One, two, buckle my shoe. Three, four, open the door. Five, six, no more clicks. Seven, eight, drive straight. Nine, ten, so you can do it again.

Sophomore Maggie Jennison’s pet peeve is texting while driving.

“It drives me crazy to see people text and drive because it is so dangerous,” Jennison said. “It annoys me so much because of how risky it is!”

According to the ‘Stop Texts Stop Wrecks‘ campaign, five seconds is the average amount of time a person’s eyes are off the road to read a text. And if he or she is traveling at 55 miles per hour, that person will cover the length of a football field in the time he or she reads the text.

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration found that approximately 660,000 Americans use their phones while driving.

Consider how many miles Americans are driving with their eyes off the road and on their phones (it is around 37,500 miles). To combat this, Jennison, founded the Look Up SM club, which brings awareness to the hazards of texting and driving.

As the number of new drivers increase, the number of preoccupied drivers increase. According to the ‘Stop Texts Stop Wrecks’ campaign, everyone is three times more likely to crash if they text and drive, so Jennison decided that she wanted to change that.

While Jennison trained for her permit, she began to notice preoccupied drivers more than ever before.

“When I saw so many people texting and not focusing on driving safely, I was so surprised,” Jennison said. “I knew that I would never want to be driving next to someone who was distracted, so I decided to start a club to prevent others from texting and driving.”

As Jennison enjoyed another car ride filled with road rage, without knowing it, she created her club.

“When I was in the car watching everyone on their phones, all I wanted to say was ‘Look up!’” Jennison said. “So, I decided to create a club and called it ‘Look Up SM!’”

According to an SMCHS survey, 27 percent of SMCHS students text and drive; and Jennison is on a mission to decrease that percentage, text by text.

“Our short term goals are to get school awareness days,” Jennison said. “Once it gets going at SM we want to start chapters at other local high schools, like Look Up Tesoro, or Look Up San Juan Hills, and even at local colleges. I think it would be really cool to have a Look Up UCI, or Look Up Chapman.”

Jennison and her club members have prepared events and activities for the future of their club in an effort to spread the idea of eyes stay on the road at all times.

“Right now, I am in the middle of getting a pledge set up,” Jennison said. “Once this is done, our club will have a ‘pledge it forward’ day where everyone will get friends and family to sign the pledge. We will also plan for a speaker to come and talk to us about their experience with distracted driving.”

Eager to create ways to enable drivers to remember to keep their eyes on the road, Jennison is in the midst of developing different objects that will remind drivers to look up.

“We plan to get t-shirts made to remind everyone not to text and drive,” Jennison said. “We also ordered rings that go on your thumb to wear while you are driving to remind yourself not to pick up your phone. And the rings have the words ‘Look Up SM’ on them and are super cute too.”

Remember to put your phones down, pay attention to the road, and Look Up SMCHS; every text can wait.

To join Jennison’s new movement, email her at [email protected].