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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
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.”
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.