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The Newport Daily News 11/06/2015

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LOCAL&STATEPAGE A3

THE NEWPORT DAILY NEWS

City Editor M. Catherine Callahan

380-2354

CityDesk@NewportRI.com

OBITUARIES A4 ◆  POLICE & FIRE A4 ◆  COURTS A4 ◆  CALENDAR A5

Friday, November 6, 2015

By Joe BakerStaff writer

PORTSMOUTH — Attorney General

Peter F. Kilmartin brought the ongo-

ing “It Can Wait” campaign to Aquid-neck Island for the first time Thursday

morning and recruited about 200 Ports-

mouth High School seniors to pledge

not to text while driving.It is an issue he long has supported. As

a state representative, Kilmartin intro-

duced legislation banning drivers’ use

of cell phones in 1999. In 2009, he finallysucceeded in pushing through legisla-

tion banning texting while driving.Thursday’s presentation was the

59th he has made to Rhode Island

seniors in the past four years, he said.The program opened with an 8-min-

ute video about Amanda and Ashley

Umscheid. The Midwestern sisters

were texting each other on May 16,

2009, as Ashley, 19, drove her pickup

truck home after completing her fresh-

man year at Kansas State. The two

were discussing an upcoming family

reunion when Ashley lost control of

her truck, which flipped. Ashley, the

younger of the two sisters, was ejected

and died three days later.“Knowing you were the person

talking to her when she was killed

... is not something that can ever go

away,” Amanda says in the public ser-

vice video about the dangers of textingwhile driving. “’Yeah.’ Four little let-

ters. That’s what killed her.”Addressing students after the video,

Kilmartin advised them not to think

what happened to the Umscheid sisters

could never happen to them.“I can guarantee you that every per-

son in that video is like every single

one of us in this room: ‘It can’t happen

to me. It won’t happen to me,’” Kilmar-

tin said. “The reality is it did happen to

them. It can happen to you. It can hap-pen to any of us.”

According to Distraction.gov, the fed-

eral government’s official website for

distracted driving, 3,154 people died and

424,000 were injured in traffic accidents

attributed to distracted driving in 2013.

The fatalities represented a 6.7 increase

over 2012, according to the site.Texting is just part of the problem.

Drivers have admitted they have sentemails, surfed the Internet, taken self-ies, shot videos, interacted on Face-

book, Twitter and Snapchat and con-

ducted video chats while behind the

wheel, according to information put

out by AT&T.But statistics don’t tell the whole

story, said Gabrielle Abbate, chief of

highway safety for the state Depart-

ment of Transportation.“Every one of those statistics has

a face,” Abbate told students. “Every-

body here has someone out there whoneeds them, who loves them. While

you’re in that car they need you to be

alive. Nobody wants to be a statistic but

you could be. This is not a game.”Before the public service video was

shown, Principal Robert Littlefield

took a spin on the attorney general’s

distracted driving simulator. As the

“driver” navigates streets he or she

gets periodic notices of incoming textmessages on the phone and is sup-

posed to answer it. Littlefield drifted

across the double-yellow center lines

several times during his “spin.” One

time he slowed almost to a stop while

checking his phone. Another time, as

he approached a T-intersection wherehe was supposed to turn left, he moved

to the far right lane and never turned

his blinker on before making the turn.

Many people try to use their phones

while shifting their eyes between its

screen and the road, Kilmartin said.

But a car traveling 50 mph can travel

100 yards in 2-3 seconds, he said.“It’s like closing your eyes while driv-

ing the length of a football field,” he said.

As part of the presentation, Kilmar-tin and Littlefield asked students to

“take the pledge” not to text and drive.

Two poster boards were left in the school

auditorium for students to sign. Several

students signed on their way out.Twin sisters Alistair and Jordan

Liptak obtained their driving permits

Tuesday and hadn’t even been out on

the road yet. Their mother suffered

serious injuries several years ago,

they said, when her car was hit by a

distracted driver. Kilmartin’s presenta-

tion left a deep impression on the girls.

“Definitely not,” Alistair said when

asked if she would text while driving.“I think it’s just really important peo-ple don’t text (while driving).”

“You can never say whether you

saved a life or not,” Kilmartin said

of the “It Can Wait” campaign. “But

I think it has.”

 Baker@NewportRI.com

Dave Hansen | Staff photos

Rhode Island Attorney General Peter F. Kilmartin invites Portsmouth High School seniors Christopher

Costa, right, and Jackson Levine to sign a pledge to not text and drive on Thursday at the school.

Message to teens: ‘It Can Wait’Attorney general discusses the dangers of distracted driving

At left, twin sisters Alistair and Jordan Liptak, who obtained their driving permits on Tuesday, talkabout what they learned at Thursday’s assembly at Portsmouth High School. At right, Principal RobertLittlefield uses a driving simulator to illustrate the hazards of texting while driving.