PHOENIX — Nine deadly crashes last year could have been avoided. The Arizona Department of Public Safety told ABC15 they can link those specific crashes directly to distracted driving as the cause.
They investigated nearly 2,000 crashes in total.
Safety advocates have been looking to educate drivers by hosting the Annual Distracted Driving Summit over the years.
ABC15 hopped in the passenger seat with one of the co-facilitators of the 2023 event. She had a backseat driver who can give a lesson to us all.
"He's on his phone," said Carly Baez as we drove down Phoenix streets.
"Oh yeah," exclaimed her daughter, Georgia Skerven. "His eyes are like down."
This mother-daughter duo is a team on the road. Eleven-year-old Skerven is Baez's second set of eyes. She scans the roads along the route to and from school.
Sadly, it is never too hard to spot someone on a cell phone.
"Oh... right there," said Traffic Anchor Megan Thompson when seeing a reckless driver.
Skerven says it makes her nervous to see distracted drivers.
"They might have gotten into a crash," she said.
Skerven and Baez are constantly communicating on those car rides as they go over what they see.
"You know what a distracted driver looks like because your mom pointed it out to you," Thompson said.
"Yeah, because their head might be down like this... looking at their phone... looking up," Skerven explained.
Baez is on the Operation Safe Roads Advisory Board. It is a team of safety advocates, victim families, and law enforcement organized by ABC15 to discuss important topics and possible solutions. She also serves as a co-facilitator for this year's Annual Arizona Distracted Driving Summit.
"Let's start having those conversations about why it's important to drive responsibly," Baez said. "Why it's important that that text can wait. You can pull over."
Baez said distractions have always been around. They have just evolved even further throughout the years.
"How many of us had piles of old maps? We always had some form of distraction," Baez said. "It's just maybe have been in a different format."
It is not about shaming people. Baez said she wants people to be educated and learn how to change their behavior.
"It's like getting home and you're loading the dishwasher and somebody tells you they don't like the way you load the dishwasher," Baez described. "And, 'get out of the way, I'm going to do it myself,' but never tell you how they want it loaded."
Baez and the team have worked to put resources online from videos to family pledges and a community challenge to take the guesswork out of starting that conversation with your teen or any driver.
"My mom's the safety professional here," Skerven said. "You should watch some of (those) videos... so you can get some more learning of how not to be distracted like these people!"
She is a cheerleader for her mom along with the community. She wants all of us to make the roads safer for when she takes the wheel in just a few years.
"I want to see other people not be distracted because that will make me more happy," the 11-year-old said.
To learn more about the Annual Arizona Distracted Driving Summit, click here.
Have a road issue or a question for Operation Safe Roads? Call 833-AZ-ROADS or email roads@abc15.com.