The muckrakers over at Mother Jones published this interesting investigative report about using a cell phone while driving, and the reasons why it hasn’t been banned yet. It also highlights the growing movement against this behavior. Check it out!
Among these documents, which NHTSA has refused to release but which were obtained for this article through unofficial channels, was the first-ever government estimate of deaths from cell phone-related crashes: 955 in 2002
Behind the wheel and busy on her cell phone, Holly Jo Smeckert didn’t slow down as she neared Knapp’s Corner, a busy intersection in Grand Rapids, Michigan.
It was January 19, 2004, and the 20-year-old nanny and Sunday-school teacher was taking her young charge to dance class in her employers’ Hummer. Smeckert was so absorbed in her call that she noticed neither the red light nor the line of cars stopped in the adjacent lane awaiting a signal change. Traffic flowed through the intersection in front of her, but that didn’t register either. Without even touching the brakes, she blasted through the light at 45 miles an hour, slamming into a Chevy Suburban and pushing it 120 feet—over a sidewalk and onto a patch of snow.
The other driver, Judy Teater, wasn’t badly hurt, but Joe, her 12-year-old son, bore the full impact. He was unconscious, his breathing wet and gurgling. Judy, a former nurse, struggled to clear an airway. An anesthesiologist pulled over and tried mouth-to-mouth, sucking blood from Joe’s lungs and spitting it onto the snow. A neighbor of the Teaters who had witnessed the crash called Judy’s husband Dave in near hysterics; he arrived in time to watch emergency crews extricate his son, and then rode with Joe in the ambulance.
The boy never regained consciousness. Doctors ran tests but found no sign of brain activity, so the Teaters gave their permission to take their son off life support and harvest his organs. Joe’s death was a big local story, and hundreds of people turned out for his funeral.
NEWSLETTER
1 Comment
This is so depressing. The whole time I was reading I was growing so angry with the woman for killing someone else, knowing it was coming.
I didn’t expect it to be her own son. What a horrible torture that will likely be for the rest of her life.
I think the problem is that it’s not illegal to drive and talk on your phone, so it barely registers as being wrong if it does at all. It’s not like murder or stealing where it’s something intrinsically obviously wrong, that our conscience tells us is wrong.
It’s just another habit that few people see as being able to cause harm, which is clearly so untrue.