On Sunday December 13th, 2009, about 11:09 a.m., 22-year-old Stephen Clark, a resident of Tewksbury Massachusetts and a former Marine, crashed his Nissan Altima into a tree on Andover Street in Lowell. He was trapped in his car for 30 minutes while firefighters worked to cut off the door of his car to free him. He was pronounced dead after being taken to Saints Medical Center in Lowell.
Police said that they thought he had been distracted while driving and was also speeding. There were no skid marks at the scene, meaning that Stephen had not tried to brake before impact. The crash occurred before rain started falling, and neighbors said the road was dry at the time of the crash. A tire track leading diagonally from the road to the tree remained in the hard snow at the scene, and the more than two-foot thick tree bore a large mark from the impact.

On December 16th, 2009 the police released a statement which said that going at least 50 mph driving on Andover Street last weekend, Stephen Clark had less than a second between the time he looked at his cell phone and when his car slammed into a tree. Officers found Clark's Nissan Altima crushed against a 2-foot-thick tree along Andover Street about 11:10 a.m. Sunday. On the passenger-side floor of the car was his cell phone, with its keyboard exposed. Cell-phone records would later show that text messages had been sent and received in the moments leading up to the crash, and just as the accident happened, according to Lt. Timothy Crowley.
The revelation reached by accident investigators led Lowell police to warn drivers about texting while driving. Crowley said that in addition to texting, speed was a factor in the crash, as was Clark's failure to wear a seat belt. He said the Altima's speedometer was stuck just above 50 mph, though that was the speed the car was traveling when it struck the tree. Crowley said it was probably going faster before leaving the road and driving up onto the shoulder. "Texting while driving caused the accident to occur," Crowley said. "Speed and not wearing a seat belt made it a fatality. That's why we want to get the information out."
Crowley said the briefest of distractions was all it took. "At 50 miles per hour, you're traveling 75 feet per second," Crowley said. "He only had to take his eyes off the road for one second."
Both Crowley and police Superintendent Kenneth Lavallee called for tougher laws. He and Lavallee both called for the state Legislature to make texting while driving and talking on a cell phone while driving a primary violation in Massachusetts -- in other words, an offense for which police can pull over a driver. Crowley said police can -- and do -- cite people for distracted driving if they are caught texting or talking on the telephone while committing another violation, but police cannot pull over a driver simply for texting.
In New Hampshire, Gov. John Lynch signed a law earlier this year that, as of Jan. 1, will make texting while driving a violation punishable by a $100 fine. Massachusetts state Sen. Steve Baddour, D-Methuen, who chairs the Senate Transportation Committee, said a ban on texting was included in a budget bill earlier this year but that it was never passed into law. At least 12 states and the District of Columbia have enacted laws prohibiting texting while driving. But only six, including New York and Connecticut, ban the use of cell phones for talking without a hands-free device.
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Following a single-car crash that killed 22-year-old Stephen Clark of Tewksbury early Sunday, Lowell police Capt. Randall Humphrey said mounting tragedies across the country should serve as a wake-up call to state lawmakers.
According to the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, 19 states and the District of Columbia ban all drivers from texting, and nine more states ban texting for younger drivers. In 12 of those states and the District of Columbia, texting is a primary offense, for which a police officer can make a traffic stop.
While the state (of Massachusetts) keeps track of motor-vehicle accidents involving cell phones, the crash reports have no way of indicating whether a driver was talking or texting, said Ann Dufresne, a spokeswoman for the Registry of Motor Vehicles.
In 2007, cell-phone use was listed as the primary cause for 435 of 144,510 crashes. For 2008, cell-phone use was responsible for 400 of 128,374 crashes. The 2008 number is preliminary because the RMV has not yet finished tabulating for that year, Dufresne added.
Recent studies have shown that drivers' reaction time suffers more when texting behind the wheel than when they're drunk. Up to a quarter of the estimated 40,000 vehicle fatalities in the U.S. annually may be traced back to distracted drivers texting.
A 2009 Virginia Tech study found that texting drivers are 23 more times likely to be involved in a collision than nontexters. And although AAA reports 95 percent of drivers polled acknowledge that texting while driving is dangerous, 21 percent admitted to doing it recently anyway.
These statistics prompted Democratic Sen. Chuck Schumer of New York to introduce a bill in July requiring states to prohibit texting while driving or risk losing federal highway funds.
While Schumer's bill remains tied up in politics, President Barack Obama signed an executive order in October that bars federal employees from texting behind the wheel.
"Texting while driving, or doing anything in your vehicle that causes your attention to be taken away from driving your car and watching the roadway, has the absolute possibility of ending in tragedy," Humphrey said. "Just look at all the tragedies in the recent past."
Besides a series of motor-vehicle accidents in Massachusetts and around the country, Humphrey recalled an accident in May in which a Boston trolley operator failed to see a red light while reportedly sending his girlfriend a text message and smashed into the back of another trolley, injuring 50 people.

On Sunday, Humphrey was driving home from church shortly after 11:10 a.m. when he noticed emergency vehicles had blocked off Andover Street in Lowell.
Clark's Nissan Altima was crushed against a tree. His cell phone was found on the passenger-side floor of the car, with its keyboard exposed. Police confirmed on Monday that Clark's cell-phone records showed that text messages had been sent and received in the moments leading up to the crash, and just as the accident happened.
Clark, died at Saints Medical Center in Lowell shortly after he was freed from the car. In addition to texting, police said speed was a factor, as well as Clark's failure to wear a seat belt.
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The above has been compiled and written by me, and also taken from articles from The Lowell Sun newspaper (Robert Mills, 12/14/2009, 12/16/2009 and Rita Savard, 12/18/2009).
http://www.lowellsun.com/ci_13993126
http://www.lowellsun.com/ci_14008285
http://www.lowellsun.com/ci_14024938

Don't drive and text! You might hurt not only yourself but endanger the lives of others. One second is all that you need to take your eyes off the road, for something to happen.