My thirteen-year-old nephew, Lee Reyff, died Monday, August 26th. He was riding in the back seat of his mother's car. His mother was driving and his sister was in the front passenger seat. They were rammed from behind by a Dodge pickup truck that was doing 55 mph.

The driver of the pickup didn't notice that they had stopped because he was busy reaching for his cell phone. The back end of the Honda was crushed, and Lee was killed on impact. He was wearing his seat belt but it didn't help. His mother was cut up and his sister was shaken, but they survived. Lee was so badly injured that the medical examiner recommended a closed casket and advised against his parents seeing him at the morgue.

On our way home from the funeral in Indiana, we were nearly run off the road by a man driving a Mercury Grand Marquis who was swerving across all three lanes of west-bound I-94. It was late at night and he had his interior lights on, he was talking on his cell phone with his left hand and writing down stuff with his right hand. I have no idea what he was steering with.

I'm sorry if this e-mail is too graphic or gruesome, but I would like to say that I hope that the next people who get killed in cell phone-related accidents are close relatives of the cell phone industry executives who are fighting against banning cell phones from cars. Maybe then they'll understand.

John

I used to think that it was no big deal to drive while talking on a mobile phone. That was until I came close to killing myself and my ten-year-old son. We were traveling down the road one Saturday morning when I thought I heard my phone ring. I looked down where I normally kept it and it wasn't there. It had slid down between the two front seats. Still thinking it was ringing, I literally forgot that I was driving and tried to get to it. The next thing I knew, I had rammed into the car in front of me. The car had come to a stop while waiting for the car in front of it to make a left hand turn into a driveway. A split second after we hit, a truck hit us from behind.

My car was a total loss. The airbag inflated and the inside of the car was filled with smoke from it. I looked over at my son and saw that he couldn't breath because of the smoke. I will never get the look on his face out of my mind. Fortunately, we came through with only a few bruises and scrapes; we were both wearing our seatbelts. There never was a phone call. I only thought I had heard it.

Wayne

I am a retired LAPD Traffic Sergeant; now the Advanced Curriculum Director at the Institute for Drivers Safety in Tempe, Arizona. Patti Pena sent me ten bumper stickers to put on our training cars. Guess what? About six months later, one of our instructors and student were stopped in heavy traffic on a Phoenix freeway. They got rammed and crammed by some hairball who had hung up his car and was driving his cell phone. The training car got sandwiched in with four other cars. The car was totaled, the instructor injured and the student severely traumatized

Harry

As I sat in the parking lot of the sub shop munching on my fresh sub with hot sauce dripping down my new tee shirt, I began counting the cell phone drivers passing by. In one hour I counted 59 drivers with these things stuck in their ear trying to make turns and park their cars; five burned stop signs, two or more burned red traffic signals and so forth. What a mess for all other drivers on the road to contend with and not to mention just trying to avoid these cell phone freaks.

Lester

Just the other day, some idiot ran a red light and almost creamed me. Fortunately, I see so many people run red lights that I usually wait a few seconds before I go. If I hadn't, this guy would have slammed into me for sure. Guess what? He was yapping on a cell phone!

Amanda