A community service idea

Ah, kids and their technology. Well, I came up with an idea to turn their expertise into community service hours.

The idea came to me in a morning dog walk. An oncoming car was drifting over the centre line and we could also hear a car coming up from behind us. I was about to start waving when the oncoming car must have noticed the car approaching and she took a sharp turn to the right. Right as in right at Jaimie and me. Quickly, we headed for the ditch at the side of the road before she straightened her vehicle out. But not before we noticed that she was talking on her cell phone.

Photo by melissa mjoen on Unsplash

As you can imagine, we were a little more attentive for the rest of our walk where we noticed three or four more people with a phone stuck to their ear. I guess the threat of a fine wasn’t having an effect.

And here’s the thing. All of these vehicles were new-ish so you just know that they had bluetooth built into them. For whatever reason, these folks have elected not to connect their phone that way.

So, here’s my idea…

What about the concept of having an open house in town, even right at the high school, where people are invited to show up with their car and cellphone. Much like baby seat clinics, this clinic would be run by students and they would connect people’s cell phones to the bluetooth in their car. Then, they would call the newly connected person to show them what an incoming call looks like and how to answer the phone and have a conversation hands-free. I’d go out on a limb here and suggest that the students wouldn’t even need training. They’d just tap options on the car until it worked. I’ve connected a number of phones to a number of vehicles. It’s pretty intuitive, doesn’t take long and the benefits pay off in safety.

I don’t know if this would work but perhaps a partnership with the local police who recommend the service to folks that they see and might normally have let them off with a warning.

What do you think? Would the concept fly? The purpose of community service is to impress upon students the importance of civic responsibility. It seems to me this would be a great and practical opportunity.