Any parent who has driven with kids knows that it can be incredibly distracting. When your kids are causing a ruckus in the back seat, it often makes for less than ideal driving conditions. Distracted driving can easily cause a car accident, which can of course, be deadly.
An Arizona mom is realizing how dangerous distracted driving can be after her kids’ backseat shenanigans caused her to get into a fatal car crash. Now, a family is mourning the loss of two children in a crash that could have been prevented.
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The crash shut down traffic for a while.
Police have not named the mom who was driving a pickup truck with her three kids, ages 11, 9, and 6, on a freeway in Arizona. KPHO reported the truck collided with a tow truck on the Loop 202 freeway in Mesa. The car crash caused road closures, reported the Arizona Department of Transportation on social media.
Two of the children died in the crash.
Arizona DPS spokesperson Bart Graves shared that the mom slammed into the tow truck at a “significant rate of speed.” The 11-year-old girl and 9-year-old boy died on the scene, while the 6-year-old boy had minor injuries.
“Suffice to say, the force of the impact was such that it not only sheared off the right side of this pickup truck where they were riding, but they were killed instantly by the force of this impact. They didn’t have a chance, and it’s very sad,” Graves said.
They don't believe the mom was driving impaired.
Graves said that the tow truck driver was unharmed, but the mother was hospitalized.
“She may have been distracted by what was going on in the vehicle at the time of the crash,” he said. “As I understand it, it was kids playing loudly, roughhousing in the back seat, or some kind of thing that distracted her from the road, from what she told us.”
He added that troopers do not believe she was impaired at the time of the car accident.
The police had a warning for parents driving.
“Even if you’re looking straight ahead, but your peripheral goes to the right, you have a tendency start to drift left or right. This poor woman just happened to drift to the right. And had she drifted either two seconds after she did, she probably would have missed that tow truck,” Director of Arizona Governor’s Office of Highway Safety Jesse Torrez told KNXV-TV.
“Slow down, pay attention. Do not get distracted by things in your car if you have kids,” Graves said. “Stay off the cellphone. By all means, do not drive impaired or fatigued.”
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Currently, the mom isn't facing charges.
DPS stated that currently the mom isn’t facing any criminal charges for the car crash. However, there’s a possibility of a misdemeanor distracted driving charge in the future.
A GoFundMe has been set up for the family to help deal with the “mound of medical and funeral bills just years after one of their children went through a long course of cancer treatment.”