Short Summary of The Chocolate and Flowers for Non-Cell Phone Drivers in SF Project:
My name is James Leonard, one of many long time social justice and public safety advocates in San Francisco, California.
This Project is about increasing awareness and saving lives by rewarding good driving behavior for public safety's sake.
My peers and I are members of many local, national & global groups and movements, concerned with the health, safety and freedoms of our people, especially those of us most in need or who suffer the most.
Over the past ten years, our peers have seen dramatic changes to our city, brought to us from bank, finance and high tech firms from Texas, New York and other places -- has had a very bad impact on public safety here and everywhere.
I've been threatened or hit by distracted drivers several times in the past few years, as have many people I know.
Every day we see scores of amateur, for hire drivers (from Lyft, Uber, et al.) drive round and round our densely packed streets and sidewalks who are totally distracted, blocking bike lanes, cutting off drivers, pedestrians and being a great hazard, in denial.
They think its all okay, while we have to jump, yell and scream at them to not hit us and drive right.
For the past 3 years, our peers have been yelling at bad drivers and exposing them on various web sites, in the popular, gentified area of the Mission District, at the intersections and alleys near Valencia & 16th Streets.
Public exposure has had an impact but being in the street, one on one in plain view may be better.
Many drivers now hide their cell phones, throw them down when they get near us or have stopped using them while driving.
Now, we wish to shift gears and Give Rewards in the form of Chocolate & Flowers, et cetera to drivers we see who are NOT on their cell phones.
We can even smile, and walk up to drivers on their phones... see the phone, then go past and Reward Drivers next to the hazardous ones, in plain sight.
We want to do this as a test project, then add in another project to film it for as A Public Service Safety Video.
What We Need & What You Get
We have access to several volunteer peers to help, but we'd rather pay them a meager stipend.
Plan is simple. Every few days, we send out one or two teams to work in pairs (for safety's sake - some cell phone drivers are agro by nature) with $20 bucks worth of flowers & chocolate squares, for example.
Volunteer peers spend two hours, in the daylight at the intersection of 16th Street and Valencia, play the game of spotting drivers with & without phones at the stop lights.
Then go hand out a few rewards and a Project Promo Card, explaining why we do this and some statistics on how many adults and teenagers are harmed & killed by distracted drivers with a web site to go to for more information.
The Impact
WOW! The impact is using some measure of sibling rivalry mixed in with guilt as bad drivers SEE good drivers being rewarded.
Unless they have zero human feelings or regard for the safety of others, many of them will feel some envy, jealousy or guilt & responsibity for their bad driving habits and choose to stop driving while texting and talking on their devices.
Good Drivers habits are reinforced because they received a sweet, surprise gift for simply not driving while distracted, which keeps us all safe.
Risks & Challenges
Our peers are already known to local police (for better or worse) so, the chances of being cited for blocking traffic, et cetera, is not likely, at all.
The only challenge we see, is being able to shop around and get good prices for the chocolate and flowers (or other small ticket gift items). And the cost of printing small promo cards, but they could be the size of business cards to save cost.
Our peers already have or are learning computer, internet and web skills, so we can easily set up specific site or page for this ongoing project.
If it becomes a great hit in the community, we can add in a larger project to Film It All with broadcast quality recording crew and market it for community fundraising to cities, counties, states for Public Service Campaign documentaries.
Other Ways You Can Help
If you can't afford to donate cash, consider donating gifts like inexpensive chocolate squares, flowers or if you live in San Francisco, consider joining our groups and stepping up to volunteer on this and other projects designed to save lives and reduce harm & loss to us all.
CHEERS!
James Leonard
Former SF Shelter Monitoring Committee Member (for ID purposes only)
