This morning I was almost killed by a woman using a cell phone while driving.

I was on a highway outside of Indianapolis driving in the leftmost lane and traveling just over the speed limit when I saw a car enter the highway and cut immediately across three lanes of fairly heavy traffic. I thought she wouldn't possibly continue to the left into my lane, since I had been there all along.

Lo and behold, she moves directly into the space that had been occupied by my car, forcing me into the left shoulder (which, thankfully, was very wide). I had been driving 65 mph and was now only inches from a huge concrete barrier, blocked in by her and the car behind her (which had been driving behind me)!

Finally, she realized I was honking at her and she got out of my lane, allowing me back on the road. Only when I pulled alongside her did I see she had been talking the whole time on her cell phone.

I am a police reporter at a metro newspaper and today alone covered three car crashes that killed a total of five people. One of these (killing a woman, 33, and her 13-year-old daughter) occurred because a woman ran a stop sign while talking on a cell phone. After my close call I'm thankful I am not another statistic!

My cell phone story takes place on 8/19/97. It was about 7:30 am. I was taking my son to his grandparent's so that I could go to work. I was going up a hill. When I crested the hill, I saw a very large Chevy Suburban coming right at us.

Unfortunately, there was nothing that I could do. He hit us head on. My 5-year-old son was uninjured except for a small bump on his head. I on the other had suffered several bruises and contusions and a shattered calcaneus (heel). After 10 weeks in a cast and 3 months of physical therapy, I ended up with a 30% disability and loss of mobility in my left foot. It turns out the driver's cell phone rang. When he picked it up he dropped it and leaned over to pick it up.

I hope that that was a real important call!

Thanks for listening, Tom and Ray.

Michelle Skibesky
Torrington, CT

My personal experience with the dangers of cell-phone use include being rear-ended on the freeway by an idiot (male idiot, in this case) who was trying to chat and change lanes at the same time. The crunch resulted in spinal surgery for me and a big bill for his insurance company.

Good luck in this important cause!

One day, my brother Phil was driving home on the freeway 35W, when a woman driving on the other side of the freeway heard her pager go off. She then got the number, and proceeded to make a call on her cell phone. She soon found herself on the wrong side of the freeway—just in time to get into a head-on collision with my brother.

My brother's lucky he didn't get killed, but he did wind up in the hospital and soon afterwards a nursing home, where he spent 6 weeks of his life. After two years of recuperation and reconstructive surgery, he's 90% better with some residual brain damage.

Jim Johnson

Three years ago, I was involved in an accident that almost took my left leg just above the knee.

What happened? It was Sunday night about 11pm. I was helping to remove a stalled vehicle from the middle of the road. All of a sudden, I was struck from behind. I was thrown over the second car, landed on my right shoulder, and rolled about 11 feet from where it all started.

I spent the next 2 months in and out of the hospital—more in than out. With 13 surgeries. Most were to remove damaged tissue. They also removed an abdominal muscle and transplanted it into my leg. This was the only way that I was able to keep it. I also have about 40 metal clips and a rod in my leg with 3 screws. It is the full length of the tibia.

Three months later, my mother was taking me to have physical therapy. We were at a red light. I heard tires squealing. I had time to span the whole intersection. All of a sudden we were struck from behind. This again sent me to the hospital... with even more time away from work.

Both of these accidents could have been prevented had the drivers not been talking on cell phones. You can not pay attention to the road if you are worried about dropping the damn things in your lap.

Let's pay attention to the road.

Keep up the good work.

I am writing to tell you my personal experience with a careless driver and her cellular phone. While 8 1/2 months pregnant, I was driving my son to school. I pulled into the lot and up to the door to let him off, while waiting my turn to turn my vehicle around in the parking lot the woman behind me dropped her cellular phone on the floor of her car, and as she reached down to get her cellular phone she accelerated into me. My seatbelt slammed my stomach, and about an hour later I was in the maternity ward getting an I.V. with medication to stop my labor.

If she hadn't worried about talking and driving at the same time I would have never had to have experienced this situation. I think that they should be banned while you are driving. But that is my personal opinion.

Thank you,
Roberta Wrona
Minersville, Pa.

Last December, right outside my high-rise, attorney-infested office building, a terrible accident occurred in which a driver hit and killed a jaywalking pedestrian. This occurred about a hundred feet from the entrance to the commuter train station, and the street was closed for about two hours just before rush hour.

BOTH of these people were on their cellphones! The distracted and reckless driver AND the clueless and now departed pedestrian!

I say, do not cell-talk and move at the same time, regardless of your means of transport! You're simply not attending to the road with enough brain cells to activate your reflexes when you need them. Bad things happen under those circumstances! Period.

This past January, we had over 2 feet of snow in my town of Ann Arbor, MI. As the city cleared away the deluge, the snow piles on sidewalks at intersections were nearly 4-feet high, making visibility very limited downtown for drivers and pedestrians alike.

At 5:30 on a Friday evening, I was crossing the street, at a major marked crosswalk, with the little white man in my favor—and was grazed on my side and shoulder by a black Navigator barreling around the corner. I managed to land in one of the snow piles, though part of my coat went right under the front wheels (with the snowy tire treads to prove it!), so I didn't see the driver. Friends walking with me, however, saw that the woman behind the wheel was yakking on a cell phone the entire time she made the turn and pulled into the nearby Post Office drive-up lane. Evidently getting her letter mailed before 6:00 p.m. AND finishing her conversation was more important than looking out for pedestrians in a busy downtown area, on extremely snowy, hazardous streets, and not stopping at the scene of an accident even though my friends were jumping up and down and shouting like mad.

I was biking home from work one afternoon last fall when I came to an intersection. There was a minivan at the intersection waiting for the light to change. I noticed the driver was talking on a cellphone, and fixing her makeup at the same time.

Slightly concerned, I proceeded to cross the intersection since I had a green light. Well, the light began to change while I was right in front of her minivan. Since most drivers in northern Virginia are programmed to take off at a green light, no matter what obstacles are in their path, she sped out into the intersection. The front bumper caught my rear wheel on the bike and threw me to the ground. She didn't notice she hit me. I was bruised and bloody—but her makeup looked nice and she had a pleasant conversation.

Christopher Tracey

Recently, my 11-year-old son had a very bad accident, shoving his arm through a pane of glass in a French door. In that accident, he severed arteries in his arm. You know all the stories about spurting blood? They are true.

I rode in the passenger seat of the ambulance on the way to the hospital. The driver was using lights and siren. The blood was flowing. The ambulance driver was forced to slow to about 30 (in a 45 mph zone) behind an a--hole with a cell phone in his ear. Apparently, his conversation was more important to him than my son's life. So here we are—son bleeding, me cussing, ambulance driver using lights, siren, and air horn. We followed this guy for probably a mile—the ambulance driver was afraid to pass him on the right, as it is a bike lane.

To top it all off, when the guy finally did pull over to let us by, he stuck out his arm and gave us the one-finger salute! Maybe it's not the cell phones at all; maybe the type of people who use cell phones are more likely to be in accidents solely because of who they are—what their personalities are like. I'll tell you this—if I ever see the guy again, I will physically, really, stick that phone of his "where the sun don't shine." Son (note other spelling) is recovering nicely.

This is the story of a CPA who was also a college instructor, RIck. He had gone to lunch at a local mall. Coming out of the Mall there is an entrance to a local highway. Rick was talking to his banker on his cell phone. He stopped, looked right, looked left directly into the eyes of the school bus driver who was traveling the legal 55 mph... and then, while talking, drove directly into the path of the school bus. No more Rick. Several on the bus were injured.

RICK WAS A GOOD FRIEND.

Monday, January 4th, I was commuting to work on my motorcycle. The time was 6:45 AM, a good 20 minutes before sunrise. I was still riding through the subdivision that I live in.

At 6:53 AM my motorcycle was t-boned by a Ford Explorer. I was east bound and the Explorer was west bound, wanting to make a left hand turn across my path. The Explorer was driven by a gentleman talking on his cell phone while making a left-hand turn. Oh, he also forgot to use his turn signal.

Results? One 1995 KLR 650 totaled. It was knocked 40 feet from the point of collision, in the direction that the Explorer was traveling (amazingly the investigating officer stated this reinforced his estimate that the Explorer was only traveling at 5 mph at the time of impact).

The front rim, front forks and frame were turned into pretzels. My left shoulder was dislocated, ripping 7/8ths of the rotator cuff off the bone. The anterior cruciate ligament in my right knee is history. I have lost several weeks from work. I still do not have full use of the left arm, and the knee surgery is still in the future. We will be well into the year 2000 before I can return to the dirt biking, sailing and skiing I so love.

The driver of the Explorer never saw my headlight in the pre-dawn light. To quote the accident report, "I never saw the motorcycle until the rider was flying over the hood of my car." The driver had insufficient insurance to cover damages.

My 17-yr.-old niece, just out of high school, was broadsided by an off-duty fireman (he in a truck, she in an Escort), on July 3, 1997. He had leaned over to the other side of the truck to dial his carphone, while speeding of course, and sailed through a red light, right into my niece.

Injuries: severe brain trauma, broken bones, removal of spleen, parts of colon & pancreas, not to mention what this did to her mother, the rest of our family—removal of JOY.

No ticket issued! No money paid! Then the driver skipped town, only to be found recently, just in time for court. That should be interesting. I'm all for freedom, because we can't legislate STUPIDITY, but it's well past time for NO PHONE USE WHILE MOVING. Hang up and drive.

My niece is in a wheelchair, hasn't walked or talked in three years, and health insurance doesn't feel she's "worth" rehabilitating. It gets worse, but how much more proof do we need?

My wife is currently on a cross-country road trip to visit her mother. We got her a cell phone to take with her. She called me one day while driving on the freeway. I gently suggested that she not use the phone while driving. She assured me that she was paying careful attention to the road, and it was perfectly safe.

The next day, she was talking to her mother on the phone, and backed right into a brand new Buick. Fortunately, this was only a $500 lesson.

Eric C.