Sydney Swans co-captain Kieren Jack has a blunt message for footy fans; get your hand off it, there is no excuse.
The slogan is art of a NSW government to campaign designed to shine a light on the issue of drivers using mobile phones while at the wheel of their vehicles and the Swans have jumped on board.
Crash data shows that a person driving at 60 km/h can travel blind for 33 metres if they take their eyes off the road for just two seconds, with that distance obviously increasing with speed.
From information collected between 2010 and 2014, there were 236 examples of accidents where the use of mobile phones was ruled to be a contributing factor in a crash, with seven of those incidents resulting in a fatality.
Speaking to the AFL Record on the way home from training this week – with the help of his hands free device – Jack said that the target age demographic of the campaign is males and females aged 17-39, which the club's entire playing list falls into.
"The evolution of mobile phone technology has come on so quickly that we've probably overlooked it a little bit," he said.
"I think everyone probably thinks that it's ok to a degree or they think that it will never happen to them, but we need to make people more aware of the dangers that potentially can arise if you're distracted by mobile phone use.
"Everything has become so accessible these days that we can get information with the push of a button, but we need to be aware that there's a time to use your phone and a time to not use it.
"I think we've all been in cars where our friends or family have picked up their phone to check it, and we need to start having these conversations about not taking your eyes off the road.
"The message is, we want to save lives and that's the whole point of the campaign."
NSW Parliamentary Secretary John Sidoti told the AFL Record that having the Swans involved was vital to reaching the target audience of the initiative.
"It's huge, it's so important to get these road messages across, it's a great initiative and it saves lives," he said.
"We had another road initiative with Adam Goodes recently, dealing especially with Indigenous communities, where the children were telling their parents to not use their phone while they were driving because it's dangerous.
"If we can attack this issue from different angles I think it's really important.
"It hammers home the message when we have people who are role models, who are sporting identities and having them selling the message is really powerful."
