Two years after General Motors executive Steve Kiefer lost his son, Mitchel, to a car crash, the Kiefer Foundation is making good on its promise to bring awareness to distracted driving incidents across the country.
Kiefer launched the foundation in his son’s memory after Mitchel died in a wreck on Michigan’s I-96 freeway. A 21-year-old woman crashed into Mitchel’s car at 82 mph after traffic slowed, but she failed to notice. The impact pushed Mitchel’s car into oncoming traffic where his vehicle was then hit by a tractor-trailer.
Since the crash and loss of his son, Kiefer and the foundation have already had an impact, the Detroit Free Press reported. The interstate has since been outfitted with a new cable barrier where the crash occurred. The foundation invested $300,000 to erect the barrier, which is actually less costly and more effective than concrete barriers. Since its build, the barrier has reportedly stopped six other cars from crossing into oncoming traffic.
The foundation also launched a charity hockey game earlier this month and a distracted-driving campaign to raise awareness. The campaign asks for submissions from high school students and other young people to explain how they would end distracted driving in a video clip. The winner will receive a $25,000 scholarship and runner-ups will win lesser amounts.
Kiefer’s foundation also brings crash simulators to schools or events to show how a distracted driving incident can quickly become fatal and change lives.
The goal is to reduce distracted driving crashes to a minimum, but Kiefer believes self-driving cars will ultimately be the solution that ends the epidemic.
Comments
So a 21 year old is going 82 MPH, is distracted, and plows into a stopped car on the expressway. Sure sounds like she was texting to me. Of course, I don’t know that for sure. But what I do know is there are a LOT of drivers (including older people too) I see driving that are looking down on their phones and texting, on social media, on Facebook, etc. these days. Everyone is talking about drivers being “distracted” but for some reason everyone is afraid to say the word TEXTING or using their phones. Bringing awareness to the problem will do very little. The only thing that will stop the biggest culprit of driving distraction today which is texting/Face time/social media on the cell phones is to have stricter driving laws with SERIOUS consequences with larger fines and jail sentences. Unfortunately, that won’t happen until enough parents lose their kids to distracted drivers and force law makers to enact tougher laws just like they did for drunk driving. I would love to see the number of tickets given out for texting and driving which is against the law- the answer would be very few if any. Police can use radar detectors to detect dangerous speeders- why don’t they use binoculars to catch drivers that are texting and give out some tickets? If someone smashes into the back of someone which you see so often these days, Law Enforcement should be able to access their cell phone to see if you were texting. If you were, they should give you tickets with large fines. And you should get a lot of points on your record so that insurance companies raise those drivers’ rates sky high. And if you kill someone, you should go to jail for 5 years or more just like if you were drunk driving. Those types of actions would seriously start getting people to stop texting while driving. It’s time to take this whole texting/cell phone distraction problem seriously and enforce laws to reduce the accidents and deaths caused by it. Or design the cars so they don’t allow texting to occur while driving. By the way, I too was rear ended by a car who was rear ended by another car. The driver who caused the accident was a younger kid in a big Expedition going about 60 MPH who failed to stop due to being “distracted” when traffic ahead of me came to a sudden stop. The driver in a small car behind me would surely have been killed, but at the last minute, he turned his wheel so when he was hit in the back, he swiped my rear bumper and went flying by me with the SUV like a train. If the driver behind me didn’t turn his wheel, he would have hit me directly in the rear end and would have been flattened like like a pan cake. And I would have been hurt much worse than I was. Was the kid texting- who knows. But with the high amount of texting/cell phone use I see going on in cars these days, there’s a decent chance he was.
Or we all get autonomous cars with V2V and V2I technology, thereby eliminating distracted driving (and walls of text).
Won’t ever say Aussies are any better becouse their not, driving a delivery truck means I can see into their cars at lights, their are times I would love to be a cop.
when it comes to phones & driving, our laws are if the phone is in your hand you are guilty, it does not matter why.
4 demerit points (12 max) & $400+ fine.
Much more dangerous driving these days than it was 15 or 20 years ago. Between texters and distracted drivers the roads are getting more unpleasant all the time.