Just off a plane from Mexico and headed to meet his young grandson for the first time, Guadalupe Gonzalez was riding on the Dan Ryan Expressway early Thursday when the driver of an SUV just ahead reached for his cell phone.
With that movement, the driver told police he lost control of his Pontiac Aztek, setting in motion a collision that claimed the life of Gonzalez and sent four members of his family to hospitals, including his wife, who was seriously injured.
Joseph Burks, 30, who lives in the North Austin neighborhood, was cited with violating the city’s year-old ordinance that forbids drivers from holding cell phones in their hands while talking. City officials say they believe it is the first time charges have been filed under the ordinance in a fatal accident.
Backers of the ordinance said cell phones were distracting drivers and making roadways more dangerous. Critics, including cell-phone operators, said drivers routinely were faced with a host of distractions–from fiddling with the radio dial to primping their hair–and it was unreasonable to single out cell-phone use as more dangerous than those activities.
Police and city officials on Thursday could not provide statistics about how many drivers had been cited under the cell-phone ban, which only applies to the hand-held use of phones and does not restrict motorists from using them with hands-free devices such as speaker phones or earbuds.
But Ald. Burton Natarus (42nd), who sponsored the ordinance, said he believed police were largely ignoring violations. “If they would enforce it, maybe these kind of things wouldn’t happen,” Natarus said.
More Top Picks Best Portable Blackout Blinds For Travel
The collision occurred in the southbound lanes of the Dan Ryan at 1:30 a.m. near 63rd Street. Police said Burks admitted he was reaching for his phone when his Aztek swerved, hit the median barrier and then was struck in the passenger side by the Plymouth Breeze in which Gonzalez was riding. When the vehicles came to a stop, the SUV was on top of the Breeze.
Gonzalez, a farmer from Arandas Jalisco, Mexico, had just arrived at O’Hare International Airport with his wife, Raquel Villalobos. They were headed to Harvey for a planned five-day visit with relatives, including a 1-year-old grandson.
Villalobos was listed in serious condition at Advocate Christ Medical Center in Oak Lawn late Thursday as was her 25-year-old daughter, Juana Selina Gonzalez.
The two were riding in the back seat. Juana Gonzalez’s infant daughter, as well as another relative, driver Luis Lopez, were also injured in the crash. Their conditions could not be determined late Thursday.
Guadalupe Gonzalez and Villalobos were the parents of 11 children, including five who live in the U.S. “He worked hard all the time,” said their son, 29-year-old Oscar, who lives in Harvey.
Oscar Gonzalez said his mother was badly injured in the crash, and doctors have given her a 50-50 chance of survival. She is barely able to speak because of facial injuries but has been asking about her husband, Oscar Gonzalez said. No one had yet told her the truth, he said.
“We just say he’s OK,” he said.
Oscar Gonzalez said his sister, Juana Gonzalez, was seriously injured in the crash. He said she broke a bone in her neck and had severe gashes. He said she also suffered other broken bones.
The family plans to return their father’s body to Mexico for burial but they don’t know how they are going to pay for it, Oscar Gonzalez said.
A spokesman for the Illinois State Police, which handles traffic enforcement on Chicago expressways, said Burks declined medical treatment after the accident. He could not be reached for comment Thursday.
Police charged Burks with improper lane usage in addition to the cell-phone violation, which carries a maximum fine of $250. A state police spokesman said the agency rarely enforces Chicago traffic ordinances, but did so this time, in part, because the accident involved a fatality.
“I can only tell you the officer, based on what was told to him on the scene, from the driver and other people involved, thought it was an appropriate charge and charged him with it,” the spokesman said.
The City Council approved the cell-phone ordinance in May 2005, with advocates contending it would help drivers keep their eyes and minds on the road and make Chicago streets safer. The ordinance took effect two months later, not long after the release of separate studies from the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration that appeared to raise questions about the premise of the ordinance.
Both studies concluded that cell-phone use by drivers was indeed a distraction that led to accidents. But researchers also found that hands-free devices were no safer to use, and the NHTSA study concluded that drivers who make calls with headsets or speaker phones frequently fumble with them and may actually spend less time with their eyes on the road.
Reports filed by local police agencies showed that cell-phone use was listed as the primary cause of 628 out of the 415,474 crashes reported in Illinois last year.
———-