Chicago Car Accident Lawyer Blog

Later, the driver would tell police that he only took his eyes from the road for a split-second to reach for a cigar that had rolled off his seat and on to the floorboard, the Chicago Sun-Times reports.

That was all it took for a distraction-related Illinois car accident to claim the life of a five-year-old boy. As his father stood helpless alongside the road, the 26-year-old’s car plowed into the back of vehicle parked with a flat – flashers blinking – in the right-hand lane of a shoulder-less road.

After some time passed, the young boy’s mother inquired about placing a roadside memorial at the site where the accident occurred on Plainfield-Naperville Road. That is when she learned that the law permitted only DUI-related signs. Her grief transformed into a kind of activism. The mourning mother found herself pushing for legislation to include signage to memorialize her son and raise awareness of the dangers of distracted driving.

As of January 1, families will now be able to purchase memorials that read “Reckless Driving Costs Lives”. Memorials will remain in place at crash-site locations for two years before being handed over to the victim’s family.

The State of Illinois Distracted Driving Task Force defines distracted driving as “anything that diverts a driver’s attention ... from the primary task of navigating a vehicle”. Distractions can be visual, cognitive or manual. Distractions lasting three seconds or less are believed to be responsible for 80 percent of car accidents and 65 percent of near-accidents.

Aside from texting and talking on a cell phone, other, more common distractions include applying makeup, fooling with the radio, and reading a book, newspaper or roadmap. It is estimated that of the 8.5 million registered Illinois drivers, 10 percent of them using their cell phone while driving.