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SUGARHOUSE -- It wasn't texting but another form of distracted driving that sent Cindy Stewart to the hospital five years ago. She was stopped on Interstate 15 when a car driven by a 16-year-old girl and just barely driven off the lot rear-ended Stewart's car. Stewart says the girl was playing with some of the buttons on the dash of her new car and didn't see that Stewart had stopped in front of her.
Stewart, who was 7 months pregnant at the time, received only minor injuries and feels lucky that the crash wasn't worse -- but she knows others haven't been so lucky.
It's part of the reason why she started a website, NoDistractedDriving.com, to raise awareness.
"So many things are a distraction," said Stewart, "and while you're driving you need to pay more attention to the road."
She also designed a number of small decals that can be placed on the inside of windshields to remind individual drivers avoid all kinds of distractions.
"I was thinking, ‘How can I remind myself that I should not be talking on the phone?'" Stewart said. "Because that's something that everyone does, it's socially acceptable."
The website also shows various studies and statistics on distracted driving. Stewart says she simply hopes to break even with the decal sales so she can keep the website up and keep providing decals -- and hopefully save lives.
E-mail: mgiauque@ksl.com
