FLORIDA — Last week there was a historic sentencing in Hernando County where a person got the maximum sentence of 30 years for 1st vehicular homicide conviction.
It's pushed advocates to get together for a conference in Florida on Wednesday as they want a total hands-free law here in the state.
Jennifer Smith the President and CEO of StopDistractions.org explains that they are working to pass a hands-free law in Florida.
Currently, there’s a texting law but the hands-free law is only in place for work and school areas but advocates want it statewide.
This means it's 100% illegal for drivers to use their hands to text or have any wireless communication while operating a motor vehicle.
So far 27 states have hands-free laws and they are hoping Florida is next.
Steve Kiefer currently lives in Naples and his son was tragically killed in Michigan back in 2016 by a distracted driver.
Since then he's started The Kiefer Foundation working along with other organizations and community members impacted by distracted driving.
They've launched the Just Drive – Hands-Free Florida Coalition to combat the continuous increase in crashes and fatalities caused by distracted driving.
"I think it’s important first of all that we create this awareness and we have a very simple message we say when you’re behind the wheel of your car put your phone down and just drive. That’s the very simple message it’s important everyone first realizes how dangerous it is and starts taking personal accountability to put their phones down and focus on the road," said Kiefer.
Keifer adds, "I would just say everyone deals with grief in different ways what but we decided I had a good friend who had a death of a child and it destroyed him, his whole family. We decided early on our family we can either let it destroy us or we could make something good of it and do something in Mitchell’s honor so we thought if we could do something that would down save lives as a result of this in in honor of Mitchell."
The group says the lives of countless families and individuals across the state of Florida are forever changed because of distraction while behind the wheel.
Saying more than 900,000 crashes were caused by distracted driving on Florida roads from 2012 to 2022. With more than 33,000 serious injuries and 2,727 fatalities.
Their goal is to have safer roads here in Florida.
The two most recent statewide hands-free laws have been passed in Michigan and Alabama.
Now this group wants to get this into a bill to bring to the legislature in the next session to try to pass into law here in Florida.
If you'd like to get involved the group says you can reach out to your legislators to help try to get this passed.
Stopdistractions.org is a grassroots non-profit organization dedicated to eliminating the lifelong devastation that results when a loved one is killed or injured in a distracted driving crash.
To learn more visit - http://stopdistractions.org/
To learn more about the The Kiefer Foundation -https://mkiefer.org/about-michel-kiefer/
