(The Center Square) – Illinois Secretary of State Alexi Giannoulias says drivers need to change their mindset to avoid distractions.
Giannoulias announced the One Road, One Focus public safety campaign in Chicago on Tuesday.
“Distracted driving is an epidemic in America. It is the drunk driving of our time,” Giannoulias said.
The multi-faceted effort will require teens to watch a safety video before obtaining a learner’s permit. It also includes billboard ads and additional distracted driving patrols.
Giannoulias said he hoped the campaign would “spark a cultural shift in our collective behavior to make Illinois roads safer and save lives.”
Connie Onley’s ex-husband died in 2018 after he was struck by a vehicle driven by a distracted driver in Rockford.
“Had the teenager who killed John been paying more attention, things for my family might have turned out very differently,” Onley said.
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration provided Illinois with $77,000 to fund distracted driving patrols by law enforcement.
The NHTSA said nearly 3,300 people were killed and more than 300,000 were injured in car crashes involving distracted drivers in 2023.
The Alliance Against Intoxicated Motorists, or AAIM, expanded its work to include distracted driving along with impaired driving.
“Driving with an open phone screen is as dangerous as driving with an open bottle,” Giannoulias said.
AAIM Executive Director Rita Kreslin joined Giannoulias at Tuesday’s announcement. Kreslin said AAIM evolved after working with victims of impaired driving. She said deaths and injuries are involved in many distracted driving incidents.
“It may have started where it was charged as a DUI and then dropped to reckless [driving], and then, later, we might find out that it had something to do with the use of an electronic device,” Kreslin told The Center Square.
Kreslin said the law has not caught up and that many such cases are charged as misdemeanors.
“Texting, watching movies, doing selfies, on TikToks, whatever they’re doing, typically on an electronic device, is deliberate,” Kreslin added.
Smart Approaches to Marijuana Executive Vice President Luke Niforatos said he hoped that Giannoulias’ campaign would also focus on marijuana impairment.
“Yes, distracted driving is a big issue, but we are seeing more impaired driving issues on the road in this country than ever before. Our most recent federal survey statistics on drug use and behaviors indicate that, for people 16 years of age or older, there were more than 20 million Americans who were driving under the impairment of marijuana on the road last year,” Niforatos told The Center Square.
