The Current - Distracted driving killed her daughter. She wants you to put your phone away

Episode Date: February 26, 2025

Kailynn Bursic-Panchuk was just 16 when she got distracted by her phone while driving, and ended up in a fatal collision with a train. Her mother Sandra LaRose is warning of the dangers of distracted driving, which police say ranges from people quickly checking their phones to streaming a live soccer game as they’re hurtling down the highway.

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Before we get to today's show, wonder if I might ask a favor of you, if you could hit the follow button on whatever app you're using. There is a lot of you, if you could hit the follow button on whatever app you're using. There is a lot of news that's out there these days. We're trying to help you make sense of it all and give you a bit of a break from some of that news too.

So if you already follow the program, thank you. If you have done that, maybe you could leave us a rating or review as well. The whole point of this is to let more listeners find our show and perhaps find some of that information that's so important in these really tricky times. So thanks for all of that. Appreciate it. And on to today's show. This is one of our highest vehicle and pedestrian locations in the entire city. There we're right at the base of Aberdeen Skytrain Station.

There are pedestrians in every direction, at least three lanes of travel in both ways, north, south and east and west. We're finding people with cell phone in their hand, head and eyes on the device, thumbs tapping glass, trying to send those quick messages or scrolling social media. RCMP in Richmond, British Columbia are at this busy intersection cracking down on distracted drivers who now cause more accidents and road deaths than impaired drivers do in Canada. Our Vancouver producer, Ann Penman, spent some time on that street corner with Corporal Peter Somerville and Constable Frank Turripe.

What I see quite commonly is what I like to refer to as the cell phone pizza. We all know how to eat a pizza, these slices of pizza, we hold it up to our face. And I see quite commonly, drivers still holding it up to their face and talking on speakerphone and we'll walk right up to the car window and we'll knock on the window and we'll have drivers say to us But it's hands-free while holding the phone in their hand Scrolling social media we find quite commonly people trying to fire off that quick message and they're not hard to spot What do you notice about the profile of people who engage in distracted driving behavior? Honestly, they're all walks of life. There's no specific profile that says this particular age group or range is any more seen using an electronic device than any other. We find them from everywhere.

Right now we're with my team. We're set up on the sidewalk wearing our reflective gear and we're watching the people pulling up to the traffic lights and the biggest thing is is when people pull up to the light they think well I'm stopped so I can pick up my phone, which of course is not the case. So they wind up picking it up, they wind up starting to use it in whatever fashion, whether it be texting or checking things, email, and as we walk along we see them on it, we knock on their window and usually more often than not they're shocked that we're there because they didn't see us and that's why it's called distracted driving. And just when you were talking to my colleague as I was standing here, even with us standing here

in reflective vests and he drove past two members right there, he still picked up his phone, started using it while I was standing there, police clearly written on my uniform and again was surprised when I walked up, knocked on his window, asked him for his driver's license and wound up writing him a ticket for it What we're seeing a lot of now is people who have phones in mounts and they're playing movies people have their head and eyes Locked on the screen of a device and the YouTube video is playing where they have a movie going and we see this at red lights And we see this in motion and that's watching an electronic device is absolutely not allowed Some people will tell us but I didn't touch it.

Said I watched you watch the device. We're both watching the same show. Our members take very good notes as far as the things that they observe. They, they take notes of what they see on the screen. This makes for great evidence of court. One time, I think it was last year, the driver had had the world cup soccer game queued up and playing on their phone on a mount Right above their dash where the speedometer is right in their field of view while they were driving

so in the officers picture we had the driver their hands on the steering wheel and World Cup soccer right in front of their windshield Obviously, these are things things that definitely make driving unsafe. Catching drivers watching movies in World Cup Soccer is kind of scary to think about, and police see the fallout of that unsafe driving all the time. I can think of one incident when I was working on the highways where a vehicle had broken down, for some reason wasn't running properly, and it was stopped unfortunately in the bus lane.

It wasn't actually off the road. And another vehicle that was coming onto the highway, he was using his phone, we found that out later through investigation, but he was on his phone and he plowed into the back end of this particular vehicle. One person was outside the vehicle, they were thrown into the ditch. Wound up with very severe life altering injuries. And unfortunately the person in the back seat did not survive their injuries. And that was simply because he was texting on the phone,

going to a party saying that he was running late. Usually in a crash and it very unfortunately it's usually an innocent party that winds up getting hurt and that's you know not something that anybody wants to see and it's it can happen from distracted driving it can happen from impaired driving obviously it happens when people are playing with their radio to change stations and I've seen it where somebody dropped something. Possibly a lit cigarette. Sometimes it has been their phone. They said, well I dropped my phone I had to get it. And then they reach down into the footwell

on the other side of the vehicle while they're still moving. And of course you take your eyes off the road for even a second and who knows what's going to happen. People's lives can change forever in that blink of an eye. This is something that Sandra LaRose knows at a very personal level. She is a road safety educator and speaker based in Saskatchewan. She's in our Regina studio. Sandra, good morning. Good morning. You know, I think a lot of people had a sense as to what distracted driving was, and then

they hear the police run down the list of activities that people are involved in, including watching a football or soccer game or watching a movie or dropping something and then reaching down to pick it up. How do you define what distracted driving is? To me, distracted driving is anything that you're doing besides watching the road. Anything at all? Anything at all. What happens in that moment, as you understand it, when you're driving and your attention is diverted

to the radio or to your phone or to a sandwich or to just zoning out and not paying attention? When you look away, whether you're literally looking away or figuratively looking away, your focus is shifted. And we can't multitask. We can task switch, but we can't multitask. Our brains aren't wired that way.

When you don't pay attention and you have that simple 10 second glance away, there could be something in your path immediately. Just that time that you look away, that mom could be crossing the road with a baby carriage or that car could be turning in front of you or the light could be turning red. Why do you think so many, and you've hinted at this with the multitasking part of it, why do you think so many drivers admit to driving while distracted, but they continue to do it anyway? They understand that they're not looking at the road, they're looking at whatever, but they still do it.

I honestly think it's just a bad habit. I think everybody is so connected to their phones and everybody's time is so precious that they don't want to miss the call, they don't want to miss the text, they don't want to miss the notification, they don't want to miss the game. There's an inability to disconnect. But there's also the sense that they think we think we're smarter than that. I can do this. Definitely. I'm a great driver. Definitely. It doesn't matter how many years you've driven. It doesn't matter if

you got 100% on your road test. It doesn't matter about anything because in a blink of an eye, something can happen. I said in the introduction that you know about this on a very personal level. I do. Tell me a little bit about what happened in 2018 to your daughter. KS In August 2018, my daughter, Kaylin, who was 16 at the time, she left work, she finished her shift out in Weyburn, Saskatchewan, and she headed out to a farm to meet a friend. She had never been out to that farm to my knowledge. And as she was driving down the highway, she turned onto the road into the farmyard and she looked down at her phone. She wasn't holding her phone. Kaylin drove a standard, so at the time she would have been turning off the highway, she

would have been shifting gears. And she had to cross a set of train tracks to get into the farmyard. The reason that I know that she was looking down at her phone is because the train crew that was traveling the tracks that day saw her looking down at her passenger seat before they hit her. She didn't see the train. She didn't hear the train. So not only was she using her phone, but her music was that loud. She didn't have air conditioning in her car.

All of her windows were rolled down. It was a hot August afternoon. The train did blow their whistle. There was witnesses that heard the whistle, and she just simply didn't see it. But ironically, they were traveling opposite directions. And anybody who's been in Saskatchewan knows that there's no trees. There was nothing blocking the view of her from her to the train. So she would have seen it and I think she did see it when she was on the highway, but it was a single engine and one rail car and she probably didn't think it was moving. And she was 16 at the time? She was 16 at the time and she fought for six days in the hospital up in Saskatoon,

but ultimately she died of a traumatic head injury the day after her 17th birthday. I'm sorry. Life's been different ever since. I was going to say, how do you think about part of what you're doing, I want to talk about this, part of what you do now is obviously directly motivated by what your family has gone through, but there's something else that's going on there. How are you doing now? For the most part, I'm doing good. I made a promise to Kaylin before she passed away that I was going to make her proud, and

it's a promise I intend to keep. And to me, this was never in the cards. This was not a plan. Nobody loses a child and then writes a presentation and relives it every day that they do a presentation. But I was thinking about this, and it doesn't matter if I'm standing in front of an auditorium of students or if I'm simply opening my eyes in the morning. I relive losing Kaylin every day.

So if I'm going to relive losing Kaylin every day, maybe her death could be turned into value. And if I can save one person that is sitting in that audience, then I think Kaylin and I have done our jobs. In Scarborough, this is fire behind our eyes. A passion in our bellies. It's in the hearts of our neighbors. The eyes of our nurses. and the hands of our doctors. It's what makes Scarborough Scarborough. In our hospitals we do more than anyone thought possible, with less than anyone could imagine. But it's time to imagine what we can do with more. Join Scarborough Health Network and together we can turn grit

into greatness. This message comes from Viking, committed to exploring the world in comfort. Journey through the heart of Europe on a Viking longship with thoughtful service, destination-focused dining and cultural enrichment on board and on shore. With a variety of voyages and sailing dates to choose from, now is the time to explore Europe's waterways. Learn more at Viking.com. How do you understand, because it's something that so many people do, right? The phone is, we're attached to the phone in so many ways. Yeah every I mean even

schools you know the notifications come to parents through an app. The students have to upload their their work they they have to contact the school. They need the internet at their disposal to look up, to do research. Not everybody can afford laptops. Not everybody has laptops, but almost everybody has a phone. Which is why, and again, having gone through this, I mean, is there a part of you that understands why she was looking at her phone?

Oh, absolutely. Because she's 16 years old. Yeah, it's normal. Yeah. But you know, when she was in the car with me, she wouldn't let me touch my phone. So she knew they were distracting. But this is what we were saying earlier, right? Yeah.

That in some ways, it's ingrained behavior. It is. It's a habit. I think if people actually were aware of their actions and paid attention to how automatically they grab that phone, how instinctively you grab it and it hasn't dinged, it hasn't given you a notification, it hasn't rang, but how just out of, it's sort of like quitting smoking. When you quit smoking, the hardest habit is figuring out something to do with your hands. But if you can just disconnect and put that phone away, that notification will still be there. Somebody will leave you a voicemail. You know, plan your trip before you go. It's all habit forming and habits can be made, but they can also be broken.

When you stand up in front of a room full of young people, I don't know whether it's classes or auditoriums or what have you, and talk to them, what do you say? And is your sense that again, a generation that has grown up with a phone in their hands, that that gets through to people? Well, I think, because you're right, they have grown up with a phone in their hands, that that gets through to people. Well, I think, because you're right, they have grown up with a phone in their hand. My 14-month-old granddaughter, who doesn't obviously own a phone, knows how to scroll.

It's like an innate reaction. But when I'm talking to students and staff and adults, because this is not a teen problem, it's a people problem, I think the biggest thing that I try to share is what Kailin missed out on. I tell them that she would have started grade 12 that September. So she didn't even make it to her first grade 12 class. And she was so excited about graduation.

But I didn't buy a grad dress. I bought her urn. I don't get to pay for her wedding, but I paid for her funeral. She'll never be able to tell me that I'm going to be a grandma. You know, and it's all because of a phone and a ten second lapse of judgment that she made. You know, I tell the audience that in my presentation, as the words come out, it sounds like I'm

blaming Kaylin. I know it does. But the hard truth is the accident was Kalen's fault. The collision was Kalen's fault. But she doesn't get an undo. There is no undo button. And the only way to ensure that this won't happen to you is to stay off your phone. Pete I can imagine, I mean, I'm just listening to you, and I can hear my heart beating. You could imagine that there's a, you'd hear a pin drop in the classroom as you're saying that.

Katie Absolutely. Pete Yeah. Katie And it doesn't matter if it's 20 people or if it's an auditorium of a thousand. You know, it's, this is like, it's a heart wrenching and it's a horrible, horrible situation. Does something like this help you in doing that work? It does. Yeah. It does.

I, you know, it's emotionally exhausting, but it's worth every bit of the time and energy that I put into it to hear the students come up to me after, whether it's condolences, sharing a story of something similar that happened to them, or just to give me a hug. You know, I stand up in front of an auditorium or a gymnasium and I look out at the audience and I see a bunch of Kalins and I often wonder if she had heard a presentation like this, would my life be different? Pete What do you think? I mean, I wonder whether those young people are moved into silence and tears by what you say and then they leave and that habit picks itself back up. I mean,

I guess in some ways, the question is, what do we do about this? What do we actually do? I said in the introduction that more people are being killed in injured by distracted driving than impaired driving these days. Oh, absolutely. So what do we do about that? I don't know. Like I say that in my presentation too. I say the only difference between impaired driving and distracted driving is not everybody

will reach for a beer, but almost everybody has a cell phone. Education is really the only way, but in all reality, the onus is on the person who's in that driver's seat. Do you think, I mean, you hear the police there at the beginning of our conversation, stopping people in some cities, and I'm in the City of Toronto,

and police on horseback will be riding by, and they'll peer down at somebody who's on their phone and get off the horse and they get a ticket, who would have you. Do we need to crank up the size of those fines? Is that the kind of thing that is going to scare people straight, if I can put it that way? Well, I don't know, because when, in 2018,

the fines in Saskatchewan were $280. And I met with then Minister Joe Hargrave to ask why they're so low. Kalin would throw away $300 at Sephora buying makeup at 16 years old. This $280 is going to do nothing for somebody in a professional capacity, an adult who makes money. They increased the fines to $580. So that's a start, but it's still, in August of 23,

there was 739 distracted driving tickets given out in Saskatchewan. Pete Which suggests in some ways, it's not just the fines, but the people have also kind of given up on the fight against it, right? That this has now become normalized behavior. Yeah, it is. And you'll see it on highways across this country. Oh, absolutely. I drive a highway every day into work and I see it.

And whether it's trucking companies, whether it's, and I don't know. I don't know if an incentive would make it better. I don't know. And there's no excuse. And if you're dead, excuses don't matter. I mean, I also reiterate the fact that if you know that somebody is on the road, don't phone them. Have the respect enough for the road, don't phone them. Have the respect enough for their life and don't phone them until you know that they're at their destination. You said something earlier that was really interesting, that when you were in the car with Kailin and she saw you on the phone, she would tell you off the phone that she

wouldn't let you be on the phone. No, she wouldn't let me. Yeah. So, if you're a passenger in a vehicle and you see that the driver is distracted, what advice do you have for that person? Speak up because your life is worth it. You know, all the ad campaigns about impaired driving, about finding a ride home, your life is worth it.

You know, be a friend, be a wingman. The same goes with cell phone use. The difference being is that a cell phone is a normal everyday part of life, whereas alcohol isn't, or mostly isn't. For younger people, the reason that I focus on teens is number one one because that's when Kailin passed away. But number two, I think that the younger that you break

a habit, the more chance there is to form a new habit. That's when those habits are being ingrained in some ways when you're younger, just learning how to drive. And I've spoken to kids as young as grade six. And the reason that I choose to do the grade six, seven, eight, nine prior to them even getting into driver training is number one, they will call their parents out. And they are far enough away from actually driving that it might become normal behavior to not use your phone. And I think the only way that we will ever get that

number down to zero is if either phone companies or car manufacturers step forward and do something to make it absolutely that phones will not work if a car is moving. In the meantime, I mean, it's in our hands in some ways. It is. And so, I mean, before I let you go, part of this is about the fact that almost everybody,

everybody has done this at some point in time. Do you know what I mean? Absolutely. I did at the day of Kailin's accident. You did at the, sorry, you did at the day of her accident. I did. Her and I were on the phone. And I had to wait that eight or nine months to get that police report back to make sure

that I wasn't on the phone with her when that train hit her. Pete So, what would you say to somebody who has, who's listening right now, who is, and they know that they have done this, that they have been a distracted driver? Jennifer It's not worth it. It's absolutely not worth, there's nothing worth losing your life over. And you can lose your life as in dying, or you can lose your life as in having all of the legal and emotional consequences of you killing or severely injuring someone. And it is not worth it.

You said that you wanted to, um, to make her proud. I do. Yeah. You've done that in the work that you're doing. It's really important. Thank you. It's really good to talk to you. This has got to be hard, um, but it is, it is, uh,

important and I hope that, um, that it gets through. Sandra, thank you very much. Thanks for having me, Matt. Sandra LaRose is a road and rail safety educator and speaker. She was in Regina. Any thoughts on this in terms of how we put the phone down? You can email us, thecurrent at cbc.ca.

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