This past May, 20-year-old Abby Sletten’s life was turned upside down. She she rear-ended another car while going 85 miles an hour on a North Dakota highway in her Ford Escape, killing one passenger and injuring the two others.
89-year-old Phyllis Gordon died at the scene, while Gordon’s granddaughter Jennifer Meyers and great granddaughter Paige were taken to the hospital for non-life-threatening injuries incurred in the crash.
What was the cause of this accident? Abby was using her phone at the time.
Court documents obtained by CNN note that Sletten didn’t leave any skid marks, implying that she didn’t see the car in front of her.
After police obtained a warrant to check her mobile activity, she’s now facing a count of negligent homicide, and stands accused of using Facebook on her cellphone while driving. She was using her mobile Facebook app to look at photos at the time of the collision. There were also records of her sending text messages while driving.
The accident occurred back in May, but after police discovered that Sletten was using her phone at the time of the accident, they arrested her last week, on August 27, and set bail at $5,000. She will appear in court on October 8th.
A 2011 North Dakota law forbids texting and driving with a $100 fine, but Traill County Sheriff Mike Crocker told CNN that there needs to be a stronger consequence.
“Texting and driving to me.. is becoming a very serious problem,” he said. “We gotta have a reason for them to not text and drive.”
Reports from textinganddrivingsafety.com note that 23% of all auto collisions in 2011 involved cellphones, a total of 1.3 million crashes. Text messaging makes you 23 times more likely to get in accident.
We strongly urge you to consider the consequences of texting while driving. It’s simple: using your phone is distracting, and driving a hurtling box of metal down a thin concrete strip demands focus. Put your iPhone down. That notification can wait.
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