BEREA, Ohio — “What are you going to do with the things that distract you?”
That was one of the questions Brock Dietrich asked a group of teenagers and their families on a Saturday afternoon in Berea, as he led a presentation about safe driving.
His was one of a number of stops in the day-long Teen Driving ROADeo event, hosted by UH Rainbow Babies & Children's Hospital alongside the Berea Police Department and Impact Teen Drivers. The event was designed to give students hands-on safe driving skills, from how to change a tire to understanding the dangers of distracted driving.
On a screen, Brock showed the group a video of a 17-year-old high school junior named Sydnee, who died in 2013 in a distracted driving crash on the east side of Columbus. In the video, the passenger in her car said he felt the car jerk, and when he looked up, he saw Sydnee had her phone in her hand, before the car went off the road. While the two passengers in the car survived, Sydnee did not.
“I am confident that if she had not been distracted by her phone or she had put on her seatbelt, if either of those two things were different, she would be alive today,” Dietrich said.
To Dietrich, this is more than a quick 20 minute classroom talk. This is his family’s story. Sydnee was his daughter, a young woman he said had a knack for connecting with others and aspirations of opening her own beauty salon, whose life was cut short due to distracted driving.
“You can't wait until the moment to decide how you're going to respond when your phone dings. You have to have a plan to prevent it from distracting you,” he said. “Car crashes are 100% preventable, it's all about the choices that you make when you're behind the wheel of a vehicle.”
Last April, a law addressing distracted driving and cell phone usage behind the wheel was enacted in Ohio, making distracted driving a primary offense. For the first six months, drivers who were pulled over on their cell phones were given a warning and educated on the new law.
According to the law, it is now illegal to “use or hold a cell phone or electronic device in your hand, lap, or other parts of the body while driving on Ohio roads,” according to the Ohio Department of Transportation. However, drivers may use hands-free devices, such as an earpiece or Bluetooth connection, and may also use speaker phone.
Drivers may use their phones in emergency situations, at a red light, or when holding the phone directly up to their ear. Essentially, anything that requires more than a single touch or swipe of the phone is illegal.
The new law also allows law enforcement to pull a driver over and issue a citation for simply seeing a driver use their phone illegally.
According to the Ohio State Highway Patrol (OSHP), from 2019 through 2023, distracted driving was a factor in 55,857 crashes in Ohio. Those crashes resulted in 185 deaths. Over the past five years, Cuyahoga County has had the highest number of distracted driving crashes statewide with 5,321.
However, with the implementation of this law, OSHP says last year, Ohio saw the fewest number of distracted driving-related deaths over the past five years with 28.
“Now we could take a really proactive approach and take action when we visually observed someone using their cell phone behind the wheel,” said Sgt. Bridget Matt.
Sgt. Matt said comparing the last three months of 2022 to the last three months of 2023, when the law became enforceable, citations increased 119%.
“When we take a look at someone that's impaired driving or driving drunk behind the wheel, [we see] a lot of the same violations as what we observe when we see someone holding a cell phone in their hand while driving,” she said. “We see those marked lane violations, people leaving their lane of travel. We see the speed violations. We see people that are failing to yield at stop signs or traffic lights.”
Employees at the Ohio Department of Transportation (ODOT) see these behaviors, too.
“If you're looking down, you're not going to see those work crews in time for you to be able to move over and get out of the way of them,” said Amanda McFarland, a public information officer for ODOT in Northeast Ohio. “So that's another reason that distracted driving is dangerous.”
McFarland said she’s heard from road crews about people needing swerve out of the way last minute to avoid them due to distracted driving.
“Their office doesn't come with a desk and a chair and a lamp. Their office comes on the side of the road with cones protecting them,” McFarland said. “So seeing a decrease in the number of folks that are using their phones while behind the wheel is a very positive outlook for our men and women.”
According to ODOT, Cambridge Mobile Telematics has been monitoring the impact of the law in Ohio, with their motion data analysis showing an 8.6% decrease in distracted driving in the state since the law took effect, preventing about 3,600 crashes.
That’s good news to Cathy and Doug Richeson. Their 29-year-old son, Nathan, was killed by a distracted driver as he was changing a tire on the interstate in Guernsey County in August of 2014. He was heading to a camping trip with his wife to celebrate their second wedding anniversary, according to the Richesons.
“It’s almost like yesterday when this happened,” said Doug. “We very much still hold the grief in our hearts and just trying to step one foot in front of the other to move forward in this crazy world.”
Cathy and Doug describe Nathan as a talented pilot, a captain in the Air Force National Guard out of Rickenbacker, serving his country and supporting his fellow servicemen and women at home and abroad.
“He was very, very involved with flying,” Doug said. “He loved flying, he loved helping his neighbors, he loved helping his friends.”
Now, Cathy and Doug have dedicated themselves to helping educate others about the dangers of distracted driving, so that no other family has to endure what they’ve been through.
“To drive distracted is a very selfish act. When you are behind the wheel, you have to focus on what you're doing. And that's not texting, that's not anything but driving,” Cathy said. “We will do whatever needs to happen to not have one family lose, a loved one to silliness, to selfish behavior.”