Frederica Freyberg:

In the midst of a busy thanksgiving holiday travel season that has seen its share of bad conditions, another threat on the roadways: distracted driving. Last year, Wisconsin saw 60 fatal car accidents as a result. In tonight’s closer look, a new bill in the state legislature aims to target one common form of distraction: the use of smartphones. Marisa Wojcik reports from Hudson.

Tom Goeltz:

I thought I could do it safely. I did it for 15 years without an incident. And I was pretty darn good at it. And I thought, well, I’m a safety consultant. I should be good at this.

Marisa Wojcik:

For years, Tom Goeltz of Hudson didn’t see using his phone while driving as a very big deal.

Tom Goeltz:

Most of it was legal that I was doing. Talking on the phone. And my clients need to hear from me. My kids need to hear from me.

Marisa Wojcik:

Even with his 33 years of experience in occupational safety, he didn’t think there was a significant danger of something happening while he was behind the wheel.

Tom Goeltz:

You don’t think that you’re going to crash on your way to work and your life is going to change.

Marisa Wojcik:

But on a February day in 2016, Tom wasn’t the one in danger. It was his 22-year-old daughter.

Tom Goeltz:

Unfortunately, my daughter Megan was killed in a car crash. And it was due to a distracted driver. And Megan was pregnant at the time. And I lost an unborn grandson. She was in a car. She was driving back here to our house, and she was sitting at a stop sign waiting for oncoming traffic when another vehicle crossed over the center line of the road.

Marisa Wojcik:

From that day, nearly four years ago, Tom has refocused his personal and professional life to raise awareness about the dangers of distracted driving.

Tom Goeltz:

She didn’t stand much of a chance. And that’s what happens in distracted driving-related crashes. You know, the vehicles, they’re not slowing down before they hit somebody else.

Marisa Wojcik:

But there’s one trend Tom holds particularly responsible for this. Smartphones.

Tom Goeltz:

It’s uncanny the relationship between our traffic fatalities on our roads increasing and when we all started getting smartphones.

Marisa Wojcik:

A survey from the National Highway and Traffic Safety Administration shows 5.3% of drivers reported using a cell phone while driving, with the majority of those drivers being ages 16 to 24.

Nate Henriksen:

Those statistics can often be misleading.

Marisa Wojcik:

Wisconsin State Patrol Lieutenant Nate Henriksen says these figures are often under-reported.

Nate Henriksen:

Admission isn’t always something that we’re privy to but — so we’ll take appropriate enforcement action based on the — I guess the evidence that we have, whether it being evidence of a speeding violation or following too close.

Marisa Wojcik:

The message from the Department of Transportation and the State Patrol is that overall distracted driving is the problem and that includes smartphones.

Nate Henriksen:

Last year, in 2018, there were about 23,000 traffic crashes which were a result of distracted driving. 9,000 of those crashes were injury crashes. At least 60 of those were fatality crashes.

Marisa Wojcik:

In Wisconsin, it’s illegal to text while driving, stream entertainment or use a handheld device while driving through a work zone. But it is legal to talk on your phone. So there’s a bit of a gray area for what you can and can’t do on your device.

Nate Henriksen:

Stop them; talked to them about that. Hey, I saw that you were doing something else other than driving. What’s going on? Oh, I was just, you know, talking on my phone. Well, it’s not illegal to talk on your phone unless it causes you to become distracted.

Marisa Wojcik:

But Tom is hoping to change that with a new bill in Wisconsin that would place stricter limits on what you can do on a device while driving.

Tom Goeltz:

One touch. They can touch it once. That’s it. You can’t scroll. You can’t multiple touch. So it has to be basically in a hands-free mode.

John Spiros:

I think a lot of people would say, you know, why do we need it?

Marisa Wojcik:

State Representative John Spiros of Marshfield authored the bill.

John Spiros:

And to me, it saves lives. Has the potential to save lives. Every state that it’s been put in, it has saved lives.

Tom Goeltz:

What we’ve seen in other states that have adopted a hands-free law is about a 15% to 20% decrease in fatalities and serious crashes. Is that perfect? No. But it’s better than nothing.

Marisa Wojcik:

The bill was introduced in October. But despite bipartisan support, it hasn’t gotten very far this session.

John Spiros:

I mean it’d like to get it done. I’m hopeful that it gets done. I’m hopeful that we get a hearing at least so we can talk about it. But bottom line is even if it doesn’t get done this time, at least it’s ready to go next session. We’ve vetted everybody. And we can get it out earlier.

Marisa Wojcik:

Tom helped get similar legislation passed in Minnesota. He said it wasn’t a priority for lawmakers there either until more people like him came out and had their stories heard.

Tom Goeltz:

So I need to do more. I need to keep plugging away. It’s frustrating. Every year we wait, it’s just hundreds of more people die.

Marisa Wojcik:

The driver responsible for Megan’s death pled guilty to reckless driving, a gross misdemeanor.

Tom Goeltz:

My family’s had a lot of — we’ve had a lot of difficulty dealing with this situation.

Marisa Wojcik:

Tom says his memory of Megan keeps him going.

Tom Goeltz:

She was a CNA. She was a Certified Nursing Assistant. She liked to work with the elderly. We got a lot of people that came to the funeral that were family members of the people that she took care of in hospice. We heard about it after she died from the family members, how big of a difference she made. I remember feeling so proud of her at the time, and I just, you know, wanted to just tell her that.

Marisa Wojcik:

For “Here & Now,” I’m Marisa Wojcik.

Tom Goeltz:

She knows. She knows.

Frederica Freyberg:

Fifteen states have enacted a so-called hands-free law. Of those, 12 saw a decrease in fatalities within two years.