Kristin Murphy whose pregnant daughter Chelsey was killed while walking with the green light.
FocusDriven, the first national non-profit organization advocating for victims of distracted driving has released new Public Service Announcement or PSA titled, “5,500; How Many More?”
The PSA highlights that nearly 5,500 people are killed and half a million more are injured in distraction-related crashes annually. The auto industry and electronics makers whose devices are enabling distracted driving thus far show no interest in helping to curb this growing safety problem. And the U.S. Congress has forbidden federal safety regulators form promulgating national standards or rules.
“We cannot wait until others are killed or injured to take action. We want to remind people that each and every distracted driving fatality is someone’s loved one, and that person’s family is in tremendous pain,” said FocusDriven President Jennifer Smith.
Kristin Murphy, whose daughter Chelsey, pregnant with her first child, was killed while walking with the green light across a Naples, Florida, intersection was a speaker at the news event. The driver never saw her daughter because he was talking on his cell phone.
“Chelsey was really just starting her life; she would have been a great mother. And now I’ll never get to hold that grandchild,” said Murphy.
Rob and Emily Reynolds were also on hand: Cady, was just 16, when she was killed by a distracted driver. Her sister, Emily, tells Cady’s story in the latest installment of the Department of Transportation’s Faces of Distracted Driving video series, which has been viewed by tens of thousands on YouTube and distraction.gov.
