May 22

Northgate Mall reminds us to not text while driving

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By Katie Melton

In February 2010, Heather Lerch was a college student at Centralia College, with her whole life ahead of her, when she made a tragic decision to text while driving. A mere 3 miles away from her home, she struck a guardrail and died instantly.

On Monday and Tuesday, Lerch’s car will be on display at the north end of the Northgate Mall from 8 a.m. to 4:30 p.m., along with members of the Seattle Police Department.

Heather’s parents have created a campaign to discourage youth from texting while driving, and have created the website Heather’s Story, dedicated to Heather and their cause.

“Heather’s parents have released the remains of her vehicle to be used as an educational display about the dangers of texting while driving,” said Steve Hardy, director of public safety at Northgate Mall.

Beth Brunton, an instructor at Northgate Middle College High School, will be taking her students to see the vehicle and to be reminded of the dangers of distracted driving.

“We need to be reminded to avoid all distractions while driving and we need to see a visual image of what can happen to us, those we love, and those we will never know,” Brunton said. “We need to take a stand that we will not ride in any car while the driver is drunk or distracted by texting.”

The Seattle Police Department will also have documents reminding people of the new Text Talk Ticket.

For more information, call Steve Hardy at 206-362-4778, ext. 219.

Katie Melton is the intern for Maple Leaf Life. She is a journalism student at the University of Washington.

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  1. Improvements to the gene pool. Anyone who would “text” while driving are clearly in the shallow end. The real problem is that it isn’t always themselves that they do in for.

  2. I’m glad this will be on display. I see people driving near me DAILY texting … makes me so mad. Once & a while I’ll honk just to get their attention & hopefully let them know why I’m honking.. It makes no difference. They keep doing it. Hopefully this will change some peoples way of thinking about how they drive.

  3. I think this effort will help drivers get the message. It has to start with the end user, the driver…deciding not to partake in distracted driving and this will help drive that message home.

    I also decided to do something about teen (and adult) distracted driving after my three year old daughter was nearly run down right in front of me by a texting driver. Instead of a shackle that locks down phones and alienates the user (especially teens) I built a tool for teens and their parents called OTTER that is a simple, GPS based, texting auto reply app for smartphones. It also silences call ringtones while driving unless you have a bluetooth enabled. I think if we can empower the individual then change will come to our highways now and not just our laws.

    Erik Wood, owner
    OTTER LLC
    OTTER app

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