for sochien due Feb,4th, 2021

Kaitlyn Burress Public Comment Letter January 27, 2020 Robert Behning 200 W. Washington Street Indianapolis, IN 46204 800-382-9841 Dear Representative Behning, I am writing to you today to request your vote to pass House Bill 1070. House Bill 1070 amends the Indiana Code concerning motor vehicles to further implement stricter distracted driving laws. With the new bill, the use of any telecommunications device while operating a motor vehicle will be prohibited unless the device is being used to call 911 or with the assistance of hands-free or voice-operated technology. I am a student attending Indiana University and a citizen in the district you represent. This past summer, my sister got into a serious car accident. She was driving to school when a distracted driver ran a red light and hit the side of her car. If my sister’s car was even half a foot forward she would have lost her life that day. Because of this incident, I am very invested in the legislation behind distracted driving laws in Indiana, specifically House Bill 1070. There are no excuses for the use of telecommunications devices while driving. According to the National Highway Traffic Saftey Administration, in 2017 there 3,166 fatalities on American highways due to distracted driving caused crashes with 434 of those fatalities being caused by cell-phone use. These fatalities are unnecessary and not worth sending a single text over. The 1 Virginia Tech Transportation Institue found in a 2009 study that drivers who text are 20 times more likely to have a fatal crash. On average, when someone chooses to text and drive they take their eyes off the roadway for 4.6 seconds. This may not seem long while driving; however, 2 when traveling 55 miles per hour, this is roughly the length of an entire football field. Although according to the Virginia Technology Institute, calling while driving is not deemed significantly distracting, the act of looking away from the roadway to dial the call can be very time consuming and distracting. With this new bill, drivers will be required to use a hands-free assistance technology that allows the driver to take and place calls while keeping eyes on the roadway.

1 ​“Distracted Driving.” ​National Highway Traffic Safety Administration​, 8 Jan. 2020, www.nhtsa.gov/risky-driving/distracted-driving. 2 ​Kitch, Ann, and Kathy Brangoccio. “State and Federal Efforts to Reduce Distracted Driving.” National Conference of State Legislators​, June 2018, www.ncsl.org/research/transportation/state-and-federal-efforts-to-reduce-distracted-driving.aspx.

Please contact me at (614)753-3556 or ​[email protected]​ if you have any questions or would like to further this discussion. Thank you for your support in ensuring the safety of Indiana roadways. I greatly appreciate your time and consideration for House Bill 1070. Sincerely, Kaitlyn Burress