Knowing that teens will tune out anything that sounds like a lecture, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration is trying to couch its anti-texting-and-driving message in a more contemporary, pop-culture-friendly​ form. In the cliffhanger ending of Season 3 of the popular TV show "Glee," the character Quinn Fabray, played by Dianna Agron, is texting friends that she’s running late and looking at her phone when she speeds through a stop sign and gets T-boned by a pickup truck.

At the start of Season 4, fans find out that Quinn suffers a “severely compressed spine” as a result of the accident and ends up in a wheelchair. But NHTSA is using the memorable scene in a new public service announcement to warn teen drivers of the real-world dangers of texting and driving, which it says is a leading cause of fatalities.

Quinn’s accident is a "direct result of texting while driving," the agency noted in launching the new PSA. “These Glee PSAs show that distracted driving can have serious consequences,” NHTSA administrator David Strickland said in a statement, “and we hope young drivers take that message to heart and share it with their friends.”

“This was a story we wanted to tell because we know the influence our show can have in starting conversations and raising awareness,” Ryan Murphy, executive producer and co-creator of "Glee," said in a statement. “We had been looking for an opportunity to tell the story of how a few seconds of carelessness could have a devastating impact on people’s lives, and we’ve already heard from thousands of our fans about how this story touched them."

According to NHTSA, 3,092 people were killed in 2010 in "distraction-affecte​d" accidents, which accounted for approximately one in every 10 fatalities on U.S. roads. Beyond going after fans of "Glee," NHTSA wants automakers to adopt guidelines for in-car technology to reduce distracted driving, and it has launched a Distraction.gov website and awareness campaign.

[Source: Inside Line]