Posted on 12/27/2009 3:30:09 PM PST by Saije
Vinnie Sorce knew something was wrong when he saw a police officer pull into the driveway. He immediately sent his three children, two boys from a previous marriage and a little girl with his fiancee, to their rooms so he could talk to the officer outside.
"Time just froze," he said.
Sorce's fiancee, Stacey Stubbs, had headed to Phoenix for a doctor's appointment.
She never made it.
A Ford pickup truck hit Stubbs' rented PT Cruiser head-on on an isolated stretch of road near Lake Pleasant, killing her instantly. The other driver, Ashley Miller, 19, was thrown from the truck and later pronounced dead at a hospital.
Sorce later went to the hospital to identify Stubbs' body.
"You could see her nose was broken, and her fingers were all crushed, like she had gripped the wheel," Sorce said.
A familiar pain flooded back. Sorce had lost his first wife, Lisa, to cancer eight years before.
"The hardest thing I thought I'd ever have to do was tell the boys their mom had died," he said. "All of a sudden I had to do it again."
A few days later he was enraged to hear that Miller had been text messaging on her cell phone. Based on a message Miller sent a minute before the 911 call reporting the accident, police surmised that she became distracted and crossed the center line.
Crashes blamed on cell phone use and text messaging as well as recent studies outlining the dangers of the practice have helped build interest around the country in restrictions.
As of late 2009, six states - California, Connecticut, New Jersey, New York, Oregon, Washington - and Washington, D.C., required drivers to use a hands-free device, and 19 states and Washington, D.C., prohibited text messaging behind the wheel.
(Excerpt) Read more at ktar.com ...
The most dangerous thing I’ve seen was a motorcyclist (4 actually) who were doing wheelies down the highway. Not to mention all the other things.
Then theres the bikes that passed between me and the truck in the next lane. I was going 80 and the bikes had to be going 120 at least.
Point is people do stupid stuff. Govt regulation is rarely the answer.
“Now, if I can see so many people doing this, how is it that the Police, Sheriff or Highway Patrol doesn’t have a clue? “
because they are talking on their cell or typin on their laptop.
By giving them tickets when observed looking at something other than the road for 5-30 seconds.
Stupid... Suicidal behavior
But they will kill themselves
not anyone else
distracted cell phone users and drunk drivers
kill other people
I’ve been driving for more than 30 years. I often toot my horn at people who stray into my lane to get their attention. I’ve swerved off the road to avoid a speeding driver who didn’t have complete control of his vehicle, going around a curve downhill. My thought is that the dead driver was also distracted and did not notice that she was headed for a head-on collision as well. I’m not familiar with where this happened so I don’t know if she was in bumper-to-bumper traffic and couldn’t maneuver or was too frightened to react. Either way, it’s a sad story.
With this happening so much please parents let your children know a 30 second text while driving can kill someone be safe not sorry..pray for the family
Agree
This is why I'd prefer personal defense measures
were possible
“distracted cell phone users and drunk drivers
kill other people”
So do men shaving, women putting make up on, people eating cereal, reading books, reading newspapers, and doing many other things besides driving.
the focus on cell phone users is a mistake.
“...because they are talking on their cell or typin on their laptop.”
Now that you mention it, they are part of the exempt crowd…LOL walked into that one; you are correct, one set of laws for the masters and friends of government, another for the servants.
correct.. common sense is needed but I’m afraid parents don’t give this to the children but heres the car keys don’t bother me!
Perhaps...
I've not come close to being killed by
a woman putting on makeup
I did see one rear-end another car in
bumper-to-bumper traffic
A bicyclist in town was killed by
a driver leaning over to adjust her radio
who drifted unto the berm,...
Distracted driving is lethal...
It is the first rule of motorcycling
Never get on the bike
without first putting on your brain
Your going to need it
75% of the things that can kill you are
someone or something else
there is a 33:1 odds ratio for dying, per mile driven
relative to a passenger car...
Modification of those odds is imperative
and it is completely up to the biker to stay alive
In that we agree, driftdiver, and also that a whole lotta young, stupid, speedy motorcyclists are dangerous maroons. I see them and hear them all the time, as we live on a scenic/challenging backroad that has become famous in motorcycle circles. Young, arrogant, dangerous motorcyclists are easily outnumbered 100-fold by average, arrogant, dangerous folks who need only to have the desire to talk and text behind the wheel to be lethal, not to learn how to ride a motorcycle and make it their passion.
I don't know what the answer is and I'm with you in that I don't think it can be rooted very firmly in government regulation, but the insistence that hand-held talking/texting while driving is just something "we" have to accept and it's not THAT bad anyway ... is denial. It's a serious problem and will take a serious solution. Private lawbreakers with jammers may be the ultimate "solution" because when the law fails (as it already has in Ca -- people talk and text all the time) but the problem grows (as it will because of arrogant self-absorbed twits who don't know their own limitations and who think vanity talking/texting while driving is a God-given right), citizens will take matters into their own hands. You talk about "hanging" jammers; I think a lot more would rather see texters/talkers hanged. THAT would certainly solve the problem.
I recoil at government regulations, but those put forth by a state ... are that state's rights according to its citizens.
It must also include a large fine to make it remunerative to the police agencies.
Peer pressure can be a wonderful thing. No need for more revenue generation.
We've had two woman drivers killed by trains recently here (Raleigh/Durham NC), also resulted in dead children. A couple of weeks ago, a female school bus driver crossed the line killing a firefighter.
It's time to pull the plug on cell phones.
young folks don’t talk anymore, they all text.....and the cellular folks hate it....they want airtime
i rarely text but i do drive 150/day average to check on my properties
i try to only text if i have to in thin traffic
my biggest issue is looking up numbers or saving them
Nashville is a not text while driving town ...whatever
sorry for the girl...most accidents are just that....not paying attention...reaching for something...daydreaming...cd player etc....wild kid...you name it
or booze or dope
I have been driving for 36 years. I've done my share of very dangerous, stupid, and arrogant driving where I endangered many lives beyond my own (hot-rodder young kid on mountain back roads). I can think of MANY times, and DO think of them now especially, where I realize that if the car coming my way swerved into my lane, there would be no defensive measure I could take to save myself. Many roads I drive regularly leave little or zero room for maneuver without inevitably resulting in disaster anyway, whether by speed, geography, or both.
But that doesn’t stop them from typing - only prevents sending the message or calls.
No, I don’t blame them for doing it. I just think it’s massively screwed up that there are people stupid enough that it’s considered necessary to run ads like that.
I never said females were the only ones, just on this particular ride that I took, I only saw females. On other occasions, I have seen men on their devices while driving, of course.
However, I must say, it does seem to me that I see females doing things like this, including putting their make up on while driving on the interstate, much more often than I see males doing such things. This is just how I recall my own personal experiences, but I am not sure how others may see the same things.
I never look into rigs or other such large vehicles, they are just too high up, and I don’t like to take my eyes off the road while I am driving, so I cannot really comment on that. I will say that what I fear the most living here on the two-lane highways of death in Florida are the logging trucks doing 80 mph separated from me by about a 5 inch yellow line, some air, and nothing else X_X
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