Missouri Highway Patrol says the rate of fatal accidents has jumped 10 percent during the past two years after dropping 40 percent in the previous decade. The majority of those accidents, they say, are due to driver distraction or impairment.
“Cell phones, specifically are an epidemic. We’re going to have to do something about it,” says Collin Stosberg with the Missouri Highway Patrol.
Because of the deadly trend upwards, some New York lawmakers are making a push to give Sosberg’s colleagues in the empire state a new tool in the belt to combat the distracted driving epidemic.
The senate-led bill would allow officers arriving on scene of a crash the ability to perform a “Textalyzer” test on a driver’s cell phone to see if they were in violation of the hands free law.
KC distracted driving victim reacts
If a ‘Textalyzer’ test had been performed April 14, 2015, after Shawn Dover’s crash, the cause of the accident would have been obvious. Court records show the driver who missed a stop sign and plowed into Dover’s car at 70 miles per hour sent and read eight text messages before the collision.
“It has forever changed our lives. It will never be the same,” says Dover’s partner, Jenna Walker. “No matter how much he recovers, this will always impact our lives.”
Dover has had six surgeries and a year after the crash and is preparing for a seventh to recover from his injuries.
“What can we do to change this?" Walker asked. "Is there any technology out there, any laws and regulations or anything we can put in place to make this possible to, where we can stop this? Where we can get a handle on this? Because it’s out of control."
Local campaign to stop texting while driving
An anti-distracted driving campaign by an unlikely company is in full force.
Country Hill Motors launched an #ItsNotWorthTexting social media push to challenge metro drivers to not drive distracted.
“We have customers that we have lost unfortunately over the years, not to other dealers, but to texting and driving, to distracted driving,” said Danny Zaslavsky of Country Hill Motors.
The campaign is similar to the ALS ice bucket challenge; it asks people to take a pledge via video and challenge a friend, then post it on Facebook.
"This time of year, we sell a lot of cars to first-time drivers, and so it’s really really important to us that the parents that are bringing their kids to shop here know that we also care," said Zaslavsky. "Not just about their investment, but about putting their kid in a car that they're going to be safe in. Not just because the car is safe, but because they're making good decisions."
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Brian Abel can be reached at brian.abel@kshb.com.