Death of USU student in Idaho points to risks of distracted driving

SALT LAKE CITY — Taylor Sauer was the kind of person who always wanted to help those around her.

"She was just one of those people that everyone turned to when they were having a bad day because they just knew that Taylor would make them feel better about what was going on in their life," her uncle Brad Warr said.

The 18-year-old college freshman was the kind of friend who would give a classmate a ride back to Utah State University in Logan, which she did Saturday before beginning the return trip to her home in Caldwell, Idaho.

The one-time high school salutatorian apparently passed the time on the long drive by communicating with others on Facebook.

"I can't discuss this matter now. Driving and facebooking is not safe! Haha," she posted on the social networking website Facebook at 8:48 p.m.

Moments later, Sauer was dead, killed after the Saturn Vue she was driving collided with a tanker truck and was then hit by a semi truck moments later.

Police said the crash remained under investigation, and they would not confirm if distracted driving played a factor. But Sauer's family has its own opinions.

"We know through Taylor's Facebook account that she was actively in a conversation 12 to 15 minutes before the accident occurred," Warr said. "We know that Taylor had done that in the past, and we know, as a family, that that probably or may have contributed to the accident."

A study by University of Utah psychology professor David Strayer found that talking on a cellphone while driving leads to an impairment level equivalent to that of drunkenness. When texting, an individual is twice as impaired, the 2006 study concluded.

"It's really unfortunate," Strayer said of Sauer's death. "We're seeing a greater and greater trend for this sort of stuff. There's no doubt about it that distractions are growing."

According to the most recent data released by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration in 2009, distracted driving accounted for about 16 percent of the year's fatal crashes. In total, there were 30,797 fatal crashes and 4,898 of those crashes involved distracted drivers, killing 5,474 people.

Distracted driving is defined as anything that diverts the attention of the driver. The largest percentage of the 5,474 killed, 16 percent, involved people age 20 and younger.