Oprah Winfrey Wants You To Put Down The Phone While Driving

Oprah Winfrey is taking on distracted driving. She held a “No Phone Zone” rally in L.A. Friday. Her message is to stop texting or talking on your cell phone while driving.

Texting is a part of nearly everyone’s daily routine. But too often, people are reading and sending messages while they drive. Distracted driving leads to thousands of deaths in the U.S. every year.

“I think we are so used to our technology and trying to multi-task that we think we can do whatever we want while driving,” said student Mieko Sudduth.

Sudduth and other students at John Marshal High School in Los Feliz are taking part in No Phone Zone Day on Friday.

Oprah Winfrey came up with the idea to draw attention to the danger of texting and dialing while driving. To raise awareness she’s hosting rallies around the country. Oprah will be in Detroit for the live episode, but other celebrities will be on hand for a rally at John Marshal football stadium.

“Mario Lopez and Lisa Ling will be here to MC from Marshal and we’ll have a bunch of students here that are excited and are concerned about texting as well,” said Principal Dan Harrison of John Marshall High School.

The event is open to the public and people will have to go through security. The Marshal High stadium has the capacity to hold 1,200 people.

“I definitely believe that Oprah is a really big influence on all age groups and since it is coming from her, I think that she can really relay the message to us,” Sudduth said.

As part of Oprah’s national call to action, she’ll ask viewers and those taking part in the rallies to avoid using their phones while driving. So far, more than 160,000 people have signed Oprah’s No Phone Zone pledge on her Web site.

The federal government estimates that drivers are four times less likely to have an accident if they don’t use their cell phones, a statistic that Oprah hopes to improve.

For more information, go to her special page.

KABC contributed to this story