Minnesota Teenage Cyclist Struck By Distracted Driver

I’m fairly certain that all of us know that distracted driving is a real issue. Some say it’s the new drunk driving. Here’s a local story that continues to hammer this point home: a Minnesota teenage cyclist was hit by a car while the driver was checking her phone. The cruel irony is that one man witnessed this happen hours after he took the EyesUP pledge, a Minneapolis campaign to put a stop to distracted driving. Yikes.

This all went down in Woodbury last week. The driver, a 24-year-old woman, apparently never hit her brakes, running straight into a 14-year-old biking to school. The victim is thankfully still alive, but is still in the hospital dealing with bleeding in the brain, internal bruising, and a broken femur. That part freaks me out, because I’ve heard how painful an injury like that can be. The witness of the incident described how shocking it was to see how far the victim flew upon impact.

While the witness was cradling the victim’s head, he overheard the driver admitting that she was typing an address into her phone’s navigation app prior to the crash, and that she was only looking down “for a second.”

One second. That’s all it takes, man.

That point resonated with the witness, who had just taken a personal pledge not to engage in distracted driving hours earlier.

Just think of this story whenever you have that urge to check your phone while driving. It’s never worth it, and putting yourself into a situation like this is straight up horrifying. Aside from the victim, I can’t imagine what it would feel like to cause an accident like that. No thank you.

For the record, if you’re interested in taking that pledge, you can do so here.

Source: KARE 11