Distracted driving is a deadly choice. So is Florida's inaction. | Opinion

My son, Anthony, was the best friend I have ever had. He was killed by a driver using a cell phone, whose attention left the road long enough to take the life of someone deeply loved and impossible to replace.

That moment did not just end Anthony’s life. It detonated mine. When the driver crushed my son’s motorcycle and Anthony with it, he shattered our family, our future and my hard-won belief that life could still be lived with confidence.

I will never be the same, and neither will the thousands of people who have buried loved ones in easily preventable crashes.

Distracted driving is a national epidemic, yet Florida refuses to act

Florida lawmakers are once again considering legislation that would require phones used by people driving cars to be "hands-free." Most Floridians already support the concept. A statewide survey by Sachs Media found nearly 80% of Floridians favor a hands-free law.

“Floridians clearly recognize the dangers of distracted driving, and our survey shows they overwhelmingly want safer roadways and stronger policies that keep drivers’ hands on the wheel and eyes on the road,” Drew Piers, president of Sachs Media, shared with me.

Distracted driving is not really an accident. It is a choice. And it has become a nationwide epidemic.

U.S. military installations have prohibited distracted driving, particularly handheld phone use, for two decades, according to a Department of Defense website. It’s not a new idea. In environments where lives, equipment and missions are at stake, attention behind the wheel is not optional.

Since 2001, when New York passed the nation’s first hands-free driving law, more than 30 states have acted to curb this deadly behavior. New Yorkers did so because the evidence is overwhelming: Drivers who use their phones behind the wheel dramatically increase their risk of crashing, injuring others or killing someone.

Florida is one of the remaining holdouts.

Watch Netflix while driving? It's legal here – and deadly.

Despite being one of the most populous states in the country and one of the most dangerous for pedestrians and motorcyclists, Florida still allows drivers to hold and use phones for activities far beyond emergency communication. Posting on social media. Shopping online. Watching videos. All legal. All deadly. 

The government already accepts its responsibility to intervene when behavior behind the wheel puts lives at risk. That is why we prohibit drunken driving. That is why we require seat belts. That is why some states do not allow drivers to watch Netflix while operating a 6,000-pound vehicle.

Every day in the United States, nine people are killed in crashes involving distracted driving, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Those numbers are likely undercounts, according to a 2023 analysis of 2021 crash data. 

“Distraction is likely underreported because the behavior is difficult to detect during crash investigations, and police reports likely understate its incidence,” a National Highway Traffic Safety Administration news release said.

Safety advocates know how this story usually goes. It takes years, sometimes decades, for lawmakers to act. Missouri took 15 years. Iowa took seven. South Carolina took eight. During every year of delay, people die unnecessarily.

Florida's texting-and-driving law isn't enough. Michigan offers a safer way.

Florida passed its first texting-and-driving law in 2013. But it was too narrowly focused and toothless, a secondary offense that police could not enforce unless a driver was stopped for another reason.

In 2019, lawmakers upgraded it to a primary offense. That same weak law remains in place today. It is riddled with loopholes, and law enforcement officers across Florida have been blunt about the law’s shortcomings. 

“This is what we call a clunky law,” Polk County Sheriff Grady Judd said in a Tampa Bay news interview. “It’s not worth the mammary glands on a boar hog. It’s useless.”

While Florida’s efforts stalled, other states moved forward. Since 2020, Alabama, Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, Michigan, Missouri, Ohio, Pennsylvania, South Carolina and Virginia have passed hands-free laws. The results have been immediate.

Michigan’s hands-free law took effect in June 2023. In the following year, reports of distracted driving crashes dropped nearly 13%. Researchers estimate that change prevented thousands of crashes, thousands of injuries and dozens of deaths in a single year.

Those are not abstract numbers. As a result of Michigan’s new law, children did not have to mourn the loss of a parent. Parents did not have to grieve for an empty seat at the table. Families were not shattered.

Driving demands attention. Full attention.

Hands-free laws save lives.

If Florida had acted sooner and lawmakers had closed loopholes instead of leaving them open, my son might still be alive today, planning a future instead of being remembered.

It is too late for Anthony, but it is not too late for the people who will die next year if Florida continues to delay.

The lives this law saves could be our own. 

Demetrius Branca founded the Anthony Phoenix Branca Foundation to educate the public, promote safer driving habits and honor Anthony's memory by creating a "revolution" to make roads safer. He can be reached at [email protected]