Texting is the most alarming distraction. Sending or reading a text takes your eyes off the road for five seconds. At 55 miles per hour, that's like driving the length of an entire football field with your eyes closed. You cannot drive safely unless the task of driving has your full attention. Any non-driving activity you engage in is a potential distraction and increases your risk of crashing.

Using a cell phone while driving creates enormous potential for deaths and injuries on U.S. roads. In 2018 alone, more than 2,800 people were killed in motor vehicle crashes involving distracted drivers.

On September 19th, 2016, MSU freshman Mitchel Kiefer was tragically killed in an auto accident caused by a distracted driver on I-96 on Mitchel's way to the MSU campus. Steve Kiefer is Mitchel's father. Steve earned a bachelor's degree in mechanical engineering from Michigan State University, and he is a member of the Michigan State University College of Engineering Alumni Association Advisory Board. He's GM's key executive at Michigan State University and is a member of GM's senior leadership team. He is senior vice president and president of General Motors, South America and International Operations, meaning he's responsible for GM operations outside of North America and China.

Soon after Mitchel's death, Steve founded The Kiefer Foundation to honor Mitchel's legacy. The mission of The Kiefer Foundation is to end distracted driving and all associated traffic deaths and injuries. The foundation focuses on three pillars to support its mission, awareness, technology and policy. Within each of these pillars are specific goals they hope to achieve and initiatives in which they hope to get involved. They've already made some progress, but still have a long way to go.

“Until something like this happens to you personally, I don't think people really understand the magnitude of this problem,” Kiefer says. “It's important for people to realize that, around the world, because this is a global problem, 1.25 million people are killed on the highways of the world every year. It's a huge number. Some 50 million are injured or disabled every year in car crashes and pedestrian related car crashes around the world. We lose somewhere between 35,000 and 40,000 people on the highways of the United States each year. It's a staggering number.

“The folks who do the analysis on distracted driving estimate that about 10 percent of those are due to distracted driving. We honestly believe that number is way under reported. As a matter of fact, the stats would generally say that 94 percent of crashes that occur on the highways are due to some type of human error. It could be speeding or drinking and driving or drowsiness, but we know a large percentage of those are distracted driving. The simple statistic that I think is most staggering is that, in this country, 10 people every day are killed by distracted driving. And it's just, again, until you go through it, it's just hard for me to imagine that today and tomorrow and the next day, every day, we're going to have another 10 people, another 10 families going through what my family has gone through. And it really is one of the prime motivators for us to get something done here and really bring an end to distracted driving.

“The story never gets easier to tell, but as you said, it was September 19th of 2016 - the worst day of our lives. Mitchel was in his first month at MSU. He had come home for a nice weekend to go see a Lions game. He was driving up to MSU on I-96 early Monday morning about 7:50. It was a beautiful Monday morning, the sun was out, the roads were dry, and there was no reason for a crash to occur. There was a little bit of traffic congestion. The traffic slowed down, and Mitchel slowed down. The young lady behind him did not. She impacted Mitchel's car at about 82 miles an hour.

“As most people probably know, when airbags deploy, there's a flight recording function inside modern automobiles. You get the forensics from the vehicle. It was clear that the car was going 82 miles an hour, but also that, at the time of impact, the driver's foot was on the throttle, not on the brake. That's a pretty clear indication that the young lady was not paying attention and never touched the brakes. That resulted in Mitchel being rear-ended and driven across a very narrow median on I-96 near Dietz Road, a narrow median that had no guardrails at the time. Mitchel was driven into oncoming traffic where he was hit by a large truck and killed instantly.

“It's a horrific thing to think that one small act of lack of paying attention, of distraction, can just really destroy lives forever.”

The Kiefer Foundation focuses on three pillars to support its mission, awareness, technology and policy.

“First and foremost, we learned how large this problem is, and interestingly enough, we referred to it as a global pandemic several years ago before the more recent pandemic,” Kiefer continues. “And I really believe that it is a global pandemic. This is certainly, as I covered in the earlier stats, causing deaths and disabling injuries all over the world. So we felt, first and foremost, it was important to make as many people realize this as possible. You do find that there are families like ours all over the country that have a similar goal. We do things like advertising, billboards, and a number of community events to help raise awareness. We engaged with a nonprofit organization in Grand Rapids, Michigan called the PEERS Foundation, which brings simulators into schools and churches around the state and around the country to educate young people on the dangers of distracted driving.

“We're able to put them in a car and let them drive in a simulated fashion and then distract them and show how it causes crashes. We also had the opportunity to do some things to memorialize Mitchel and to create awareness. “Mitchel was a hockey player. He went to Detroit Catholic Central. He was part of the 2016 State Championship Catholic Central Hockey Team. And he was a goalie. They won that state championship at a USA Hockey rink in Plymouth, Michigan. We worked with the USA Hockey Foundation and actually dedicated that rink in Mitchel's honor. So that ice rink is now known as the Mitchel Kiefer Memorial Ice Rink, which really feels good from the perspective of a father to memorialize your son.

“More importantly, we didn't just put Mitchel's name on the rink. It's covered with distracted driving messages. There's a locker room that has a video that runs with distracted driver statistics and other messages. There are 500,000 people who visit that ice rink each year for various activities, whether it's hockey games, ice skating competitions, or figure skating competitions. And I can't tell you how many people contact me and say, ‘Mr. Kiefer, we're in your son's ice rink right now. And it's given me an opportunity to talk to my children and my family about these dangers and your message is having a huge impact in this ice rink alone.’ There are several other examples I could give, but that's probably the one that's kind of closest to my heart because every time I visit that ice rink, it's such fond memories of Mitchel and the state championship, but also a really effective way to spread a message of driver safety.

“There are many aspects to the technology pillar. In some cases, it's related to awareness and educating people that you need to be more cautious when driving. There are a number of technology tools that people can be using right now. One is using the safe driving mode and do not disturb mode on your Apple phones an...