By Senior Correspondent Desirée Taylor
NJ Today
Eight-month-old Angelie Paredes died in a violent accident. Her little stroller crushed by a heavy light pole in West New York. Police say the pole snapped, hit by an out-of-control bus, its driver allegedly distracted by his cell phone. That driver, Idowu Daramola, was charged with death by auto and reckless driving. Monmouth County Sheriff Shaun Golden says tragedies like this should be a wake-up call for motorists.
“Texting and cell phone use certainly lead to inattentive driving, which can lead to catastrophic events as we saw,” Golden said.
Authorities say federal statistics also reveal the potential dangers of distracted driving. In 2011, nationwide more than 3,300 people were killed and 387,000 were injured in crashes involving a distracted driver.
Despite these alarming numbers, a federal survey finds 660,000 motorists use cell phones or electronic devices while driving at any given daylight moment.
“Drivers who text are 23 times more likely to be in an accident than somebody who doesn’t text and drive,” said Ellen Webner of AT&T.
Webner says education is the key. That’s why AT&T is taking its campaign on the road to area shopping malls. Among them, Menlo Park, where a driving simulator put motorists’ skills to the test, showing them just how difficult and dangerous it is to text while driving.
“I failed. I crashed into a parked car. I think it said that the speed was enough to kill someone. So I failed. It’s really hard,” said Tim Brockup.
When asked if there are lessons to be learned from the simulation, Stephanie Brockup said, “Don’t text and drive. Keep your eyes on the road because you never know what’s going to come at you.”
Stephanie Brockup is among about 1 million people that have signed a pledge not to text and drive. Golden applauds this campaign.
“It’s an effective tool. It’s an awareness tool. Anything that brings awareness, much like this interview, anything that brings awareness to those causal factors, particularly to texting and operating a cell phone while driving. Certainly if we can save one life, it helped,” Golden said.
And since the 100 days of summer bring more traffic and potentially more accidents, authorities are hoping motorists make their own pledge to drive safely.