Kendra Meacham, a hard working 21-year-old college student was on her way to school on Aug. 30. It was a clear, beautiful morning, and there were no other cars on the road. Kendra picked up her phone to send a text message to her mom, when suddenly her car flipped over. Left on her phone was the unfinished message to her mother. Sadly, Kendra passed away at the hospital that morning.

“Her family was devastated and distraught after the accident,” Robert Wingerter said, who works with a member of Kendra’s family. Wingerter said that it had a huge impact on her family and friends. Kendra was a bright student. She was also an only child, but she did have stepbrothers and stepsisters.

“It’s a very real situation,” said Wingerter.

No one thinks that something like this will happen to them until it does. Texting and driving can be even more tempting especially when at a red light or a stop sign.

“Don’t text at a red light. You should always should park your car, and then respond”, said Joe Harder, driving instructor at Harder Performance Driving School.

Harder said texting and driving is illegal in Kansas, and that people who text and drive are more impaired than drunk drivers.

Even with texting and driving being illegal in Kansas, many adults and teenagers do it anyways. Sometimes it takes a parent to reinforce rules for the safety of their children. Most parents have some kind of rules that their kids are expected to follow while they are driving.

“I tell my kids to pretend like their phones aren’t in the car,” Becky Carney said, mother of three teenagers that drive.

She added that their phones are only for emergencies when driving. Even if you never text and drive, it can be scary knowing that are other people on the road that do it.

Riley Trent, student driver at Southwest, doesn’t like when she sees people texting and driving near her.

“It makes me frustrated, and it makes me feel like I am in danger when I see people texting and driving,” Trent said.

“I feel like I have to not only watch what I’m doing, but watch what they are doing,” Trent said.

Having to pay attention to how you are driving is already difficult, worrying about others makes it worse. But no matter what your situation is, texting and driving is never a good idea. It could change your life. If you want to give up texting and driving, you can take the pledge to not text and drive.