Laurie Roberts at the Arizona Republic recently wrote about the death of DPS Officer Tim Huffman, and the efforts of his family to educate the public about the dangers of texting while driving. Huffman’s family wants an Arizona law enacted to ban this dangerous activity.
In 2013, Huffman was on duty, in his patrol car on the shoulder of Interstate 8, when a driver’s vehicle hit Huffman’s vehicle, a dashboard video showed a cellphone flying from the driver’s hands. It’s alleged that the driver was looking at Facebook.
There is no Arizona state law prohibiting texting while driving. Roberts reports that the risk of being involved in a crash or near crash is 23 x greater if you’re texting, according to a 2009 study by the Virginia Tech Transportation Institute.
Presently 46 states ban texting, according to the Governors Highway Association. Roberts says that Huffman’s family is determined to “change Arizona law to protect the rest of us from what killed Huffman.”
Source: Arizona Republic, “A life taken, and a push to spare others the same fate,” Laurie Roberts, July 13, 2015.