By Lisa Parker
Tuesday, Apr 29, 2014
Updated 12:21 AM CDT
It was a day like any other for Reggie Shaw. The then 19-year old Utah man was driving to work, with one hand on the wheel and the other on the phone. That was a routine he says he never questioned, until he texted one word that took two lives.
“I went across the center line, hit another car. Both were killed on impact,” Shaw says.
Shaw is one of the sad legion of driver-survivors whose lives are also shattered by texting and driving accidents.
“I was not hurt, I was okay. To be honest, that’s something that I struggle with. I wish it would have been me,” Shaw says.
After his accident, Shaw’s home state of Utah passed a ban on texting and driving, as have 42 other states. But a dozen states, including Illinois, went a step further. The handheld ban here started on January and is among the country’s strictest.