It's the Cell Phone's Fault!!

http://www.toledoblade.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20050326/NEWS03/503260347/-1/NEWS

Driver charged in death of boy; woman says she was distracted by cell phone
By ERIKA RAY
BLADE STAFF WRITER

A Genoa area woman told police yesterday that she was distracted by her cell phone when her car struck and killed a 5-year-old Oregon boy after he got off a school bus in front of his Starr Avenue home.

Angelique M. Dipman, 27, of Ottawa County's Clay Township voluntarily turned herself in and was charged yesterday with aggravated vehicular homicide, a third-degree felony, in connection with the Thursday afternoon death of Dameatrius McCreary, a kindergarten student at Coy Elementary School.

The boy got off a school bus that had stopped in the eastbound lane of Starr Avenue near Berlin Avenue with its warning lights on and side-mount stop sign extended. He passed in front of the bus and was attempting to cross the westbound lane to get to his home at 2743 Starr Ave. when he was struck by Ms. Dipman's 2000 Pontiac Grand Am.

Dameatrius was taken by ambulance to nearby Fassett Middle School on Starr Avenue, where he was placed aboard a medical helicopter. He was flown to Toledo Hospital, where he later was pronounced dead.

Ms. Dipman told police yesterday that she was driving home from the Wal-Mart store in Oregon when her ringing cell phone distracted her. She said she saw the school bus, but not its warning lights, Lt. Hank Everitt said.

The school bus driver, 31-year-old Shawna Watson, told police she could see the other westbound cars behind Ms. Dipman's car slowing down to stop - but not Ms. Dipman. Dameatrius looked at her for a moment, then looked down and began crossing the street, the 11-year bus driver told police.

When she realized Ms. Dipman's car was not going to stop, she yelled for the boy to stop and was hitting the horn just before the car struck the boy, Lieutenant Everitt said.

"I did everything I was supposed to do," Ms. Watson told The Blade. She declined further comment.

Motorist Abe Sallock, 69, of Oregon witnessed the accident from his eastbound vehicle stopped directly behind the school bus.

"I heard her hit the kid," he said, "and the kid hit the hood of the car and flew up in the air. I was shaking too much I couldn't stand up. To see the kid like that - I was crying. I got a soft heart for kids."

When Ms. Dipman's car screeched to a halt parallel to Mr. Sallock's car, he said he could see Ms. Dipman talking on her cell phone - though Ms. Dipman told police she was not on the cell phone when she struck Dameatrius. "She was on the phone when she got out of the car saying, 'I hit a kid, I hit a kid,' " Mr. Sallock said.

A jogger running along Starr Avenue, Ron Gallagher of Oregon, told police Ms. Dipman also appeared to him to be on her cell phone.

Whether she was on the phone or not, the lieutenant said the prosecutor considered Ms. Dipman's actions to be reckless, resulting in the felony charge.

Ms. Dipman, who was not wearing a seat belt, was not hurt in the accident. A field sobriety test conducted on Ms. Dipman at the scene gave no indication that alcohol or drugs were a factor in the accident, Lieutenant Everitt said, so police did not believe they had probable cause to take her in for a blood test.

"There's usually some trigger that leads you to suspect drugs or alcohol was involved," Chief Tom Gulch said. "The triggers officers generally look for they didn't find."

Ms. Dipman appeared at the Oregon police station with her attorney, Joseph Westmeyer. Oregon Municipal Court Judge Donald Z. Petroff released her on her own recognizance, but she will be supervised by the court's probation department until her scheduled arraignment in court at 9 a.m. Tuesday, Lieutenant Everitt said.

If convicted of the aggravated vehicular homicide charge, Ms. Dipman could face a maximum of five years in prison and a $10,000 fine.

Ms. Dipman, the mother of two children ages 4 and 9, could not be reached for comment.

The fatal accident Thursday was not the first traffic crash for Ms. Dipman, who also has had several speeding tickets, court records show.

She has been cited at least four times for speeding in a little more than five years. Each time, she was driving at least 15 mph over the limit.

Clay Township police clocked her driving 84 mph in a 55 mph zone in 1999. Lake Township police clocked her at 71 and 70 in a 55 mph zone in 2002. Northwood police clocked her at 51 mph in a 35 mph zone in 2004.

Ms. Dipman appeared in court for the first three tickets and ended up paying a total of more than $300 in court costs and fines. In March last year, she did not show up for court, opting instead to pay the $110 in fines.

She also was cited for failing to wear a seat belt in 2003, for failing to place a child in a proper restraint in 1999, and for having no driver's license in 2004.

Ms. Dipman's name appears on at least four previous traffic accident reports, though she was not always the driver, and was not always cited for the accidents. Details were not immediately available yesterday on each report, in part because some courts were closed for Good Friday.

But according to a civil lawsuit filed in Lucas County Common Pleas Court last year, Ms. Dipman's insurance company was sued after Ms. Dipman allegedly allowed an uninsured friend to drive her car. The 33-year-old woman who was driving collided with another car causing "severe personal injuries" to its driver.

The case was settled out of court after Ms. Dipman's insurer paid out $12,500, the maximum her policy allowed, said Tom Yoder, the attorney representing the plaintiff.

Police said Ms. Dipman had a valid license, was insured, and was not traveling above the 35 miles per hour speed limit at the time of Thursday's accident on Starr Avenue.

Dameatrius' grandmother, Colleen Gamble, said she wants to do everything she can to prevent this type of accident from happening to another child.

"I just want people to be aware of what's going on," she said. "This is a tragedy that should have never happened."

people like that should never be allowed to drive again.

...by being shot.

She's a hazard, with a reckless disregard for law and people.

she was driving home from the Wal-Mart store

:eyebrow:

Morgan Lee Pena is our local poster child ...

"Morgan's Law" became a cause celebre. For a while. But there are so many fill-in-the-blank-child's-name laws that it's hard to keep them all straight.

I know you can be just as distracted while using handsfree options as you can while driving while holding the phone against your ear. I don't think you should do either. And yes. Of course I have. Until I'm able to pull over. Most of the time, though, I let voicemail catch the call. I do this for totally self serving reasons though, my life is far more important than the small amount of time I'd save by talking while driving.

Two minutes ago on the TV news.......Woman talking on the phone drives off the road into the ocean.
Unfortunately a boat put her back in the gene pool. :(

From time to time some people need to be reminded that driving is not a right, but a privilege.
In 1991 I was at Cook-Fort Worth Children's hospital for three months while my daughter had a bone marrow transplant. There was an eight year old boy in there when we got there, still there when we left, in a full body cast with the majority of the bones in his body broken, after being ran over twice by a school bus. He got off the bus, was walking in front of it toward his house when he droppped a book and bent down to pick it up. The driver took off, ran over him, then backed back up, running over him again, to see what she had ran over.
(What seemed to upset the boy's mother the most was the fact that the driver never missed any work, she finished her route that day, and was driving it the very next morning. She felt like the woman should have been upset enough about the accident to take off work for at least some amount of time.)

That would be the reason why school busses have the "walk around the protruding stick so you can be seen by the bus driver" safety device.

That kind of accident was unfortunately not unusual.

I wondered what that thing was.

Yah. It would be cooler if it were for bus jousting, but it's actually for the children.

ooOoo We need to send letters to wide world of sports. Bus Jousting. Righteous!

I got gas this afternoon at a station that's right in the middle of a school zone. Lots of signs, flashing lights, 15 mph, the whole 9 yards. Medium to heavy traffic but in bunches, mostly. Some people were pushing the limit to maybe 20/25 tops but 2 came through at probably 35/40 mph. Both of them were women with kids in the car...one talking on the phone. :smack:

When I get to a school zone, I slow down to 15. It's not a completely altruistic move, though. I like pissing off the jerk behind me who wants to go 30 and thinks the entire day's schedule is ruined because he had to drive under the speed limit for 100 yards.

Getting a DUI in 2001 was probably the best thing that could've happened to me, driving-wise. The charge itself was a joke (I was sleeping in my car in my friend's driveway with the motor off), but the habits I formed afterwards for fear of losing my license made me a much more aware driver.

Everyone go get yerself a DUI, toute suite.

mrnoodle wrote:

Everyone go get yerself a DUI, toute suite.

DONE!

done.

There's a county-wide special magnet elementary school a block from my house. Busses will pick up kids from around the county and drop them off at this school, but a lot of parents choose to drive their kids there instead. Our own neighborhood elementary school is actually farther away, and our daughter has to take a bus to get there. Parents with kids going to the special magnet school have been known to zip through our neighborhood, blow past the stopped school bus our daughter is boarding while its lights are flashing, and then zip to the special magnet school so they can drop their own kids off.

These parents, I'm sure, think that they are responsible adults who care about the safety of children in general. The lesson here is that most people, when they get behind the wheel of a car, change. You probably change too, although you won't admit it because you don't realize it.

what is a "special magnet" school? in the military i was called a "stupid maggot". that kind of sounds the same, are they synonyms?

mrnoodle wrote:

--snip--
Everyone go get yerself a DUI, toute suite.

Congratulations on the elevated self awareness. I'll, uh, pass on the DUI, thanks just the same.

Naw l123, it's a special magnet school, where they learn about electromagnetic fields and converting electrical force to mechanical force and stuff.

/cocks ear/
/sound of l123's chain bein yanked/

Hey, a special magnet school is a school that draws its population for a given program from the whole district, rather than the local neighborhood. This is so that there can be a critical mass of students to have a successful program. An example in our area is one high school in all of Seattle has a deaf students program. So, regardless where you live in the city, the school district offers the special services only at that one (of about 8) high school.

There are plusses and minuses of course, long travel versus other students with similar needs/backgrounds. Worth it in my opinion.

/hey, that sound stopped.../

This particular magnet school is a public school that sells itself as being different than the other regular schools. They call themselves "traditional" and make the kids follow a strict dress code. That's about the only difference. In theory, anyone in the county can go their instead of just going to thier neighborhood elementary school, but so many parents want their kids to go there that they hold a lottery. It's very exclusive.

Plus, they play with magnets in science.

One of my ex's went to a Magnet school in Vegas, which specialized in computers and IT. Basically, you applied to the program as an 8th grader, and if you were one of the 250 selectees, you were bussed to the school.

Any intramural sports were done at the "home school", which is the crappy school you would have gone to had you not been fortunate or smart enough to get into Magnet.

Magnet schools are better funded (many times with lots of private donations from parents) and provide above average education in the city they are in. In lots of cases, it's like a whole school of nothing but GATE kids.

GATE, Gifted And Talented Education?
I was an ELPer in school, Expanded Learning Program. Apparently, I was 'gifted' when I was a kid. *snort* Don't know if there are any magnet schools around here, I'll have to look into it.

I was in one of the pilot gifted programs in the country ...

Just in case we were getting a little too big in the ego over this, we were frequently reminded that we were considered "exceptional" students. But so were the retards. And the money came from the same funding stream ...

We didn't have a G&T program at my high school, so I DID get myself classified with the retards. (Actually sort-of true; it stopped one particular piss-ass from deducting points due to my bad handwriting)

Now I blow through school zones at 85mph. Kills 'em quick, and a quick death is probably better than a few more years in school anyway.

that is exactly how it was in my program wolf. i'll let the reader decide which category of "exceptional" they placed me in. i took that program from the 5th grade all the way through HS graduation. it was awesome. by my senior year i only had to show up 2/3 times a week for 3 or 4 hours at a time for seminars and discussion groups. all the rest of the work was done according to my desires as long as i maintained satisfactory standards.

Now I blow through school zones at 85mph. Kills 'em quick, and a quick death is probably better than a few more years in school anyway.

Dammit Russotto! you owe me a new flat screen monitor, i don't know if i can get the pop out of all the little speaker holes!

Magnet schools are nothing but a dirty trick in my local school district. Every few years, they take the worst schools and declare them to have "magnet" programs. All the smart kids who don't know any better transfer to ghettoville, and all of a sudden the school's average test scores are up.

I am saddened by the boys death and am also inflammed by people in cars using cell phones.

However i wish to point out that part of the blame rests on the system. In North America children are sheltered from the real world and one example is the "school bus".

I gew up in the UK (flaming allowed) and on our plain jane random coloured bus where possible each small child was given an older, 8-10 year-old, to look after him or her at the bus stop. If he or she was the only one alighting at that spot mum/mom was usually waiting on the other side.

It was drummed into us both as youngsters and as "guardians" to wait until the bus has gone before attempting to cross as a stopped bus does not allow a clear view of the traffic and that drivers could not see us if we were hidden behind a vehicle.

LCanal

I don't think crossing in front of or behind the bus can be considered "sheltered from the real world".

LCanal wrote:

It was drummed into us both as youngsters and as "guardians" to wait until the bus has gone before attempting to cross as a stopped bus does not allow a clear view of the traffic and that drivers could not see us if we were hidden behind a vehicle. LCanal

In the US when the bus stops to load/unload, the flashing red lights come on and all traffic stops in both directions. The driver won't shut off the lights allowing traffic to move until any kid they know is going to cross the street has done so.
You make a good point that no matter how much you drum into the kid to look both ways, they get complacent about traffic when the bus is still there. Why bother looking when the traffic is always stopped when they cross.
In this case it was the stupid womans fault but I wonder if the kid even saw her?
I've noticed in my area the bus drivers pulling across the street, effectively blocking all lanes when they're discharging more than 1 or 2 kids. :)

situation:

I am traveling north on main arterial, two lanes each direction, approaching intersection with smaller street, one way, west. Driver of other car desires to turn left, south, across two northbound lanes of traffic. Other driver rolls stop sign, creeps creeps creeps out looking NORTH seeking his place in southbound traffic. I can see this fine since I am looking in the same direction I'm traveling. Other driver is not, but gives me an excellent view of the left rear quarter of his head. I would normally be able to see his ear from our relative positions, but since it was covered by his cell phone, which in turn was covered by his left hand, I can only presume an ear was actually present.

When I alerted him to the danger of driving into the path of oncoming traffic without looking with a brief double tap on the horn, I must have interrupted an important part of his call, because he did actually turn to face my direction. I knew it was an important call because he didn't take the phone from his ear as he flipped me off with his right hand during his southbound left turn.

Hang up and drive. Dick.