Teen Dies While Facebook-Chatting When Driving.

Bright, outgoing college teen Taylor Sauer
proved in the last minutes of her life she
knew right from wrong — but still
committed a fatal mistake.
Sauer was making a late-night, four-hour
drive from the Utah State University campus
in Logan to visit her folks in Caldwell, Idaho.
She passed the time along I-84 messaging a
pal on Facebook about the Denver Broncos
football team. But she stopped short, writing
in her final missive, "I can't discuss this now.
Driving and facebooking is not safe! Haha."
Moments later, Sauer, going more than 80
mph, slammed into a tanker truck that was
slowly creeping up a hill at 15 mph. She was
killed instantly; investigators saw no signs
that she applied the brakes before the fatal
crash. And in checking her cell phone
records, they learned Sauer was posting
about every 90 seconds during her drive.
"I think she was probably (texting) to stay
awake, she was probably tired," Taylor's
dad, Clay Sauer, said. "But that's not a reason to do it,
and the kids think they're invincible. To
them, (texting) is not distracting, they're so
proficient at texting, that they don't feel it's
distracted driving."
Clay and Shauna Sauer, still grieving over
their 18-year-old daughter's Jan. 12 death,
have become lobbyists in their home state
to urge the state legislature to pass a ban on
texting while driving. Idaho is one of 13
states in the U.S. that has no such law in
place.
Taylor Sauer's future seemed a sky-is-the-
limit proposition: She graduated high school
last year with a sparkling 3.9 grade point
average, was class salutatorian, played first
base on her softball team and was active in
community charities. After she was named a
National Merit Scholar, she told a local TV
station, "I want to go even further and take
on the world."
But her mom told Curry that Taylor was also
in many ways a typical teen who got caught
up in the modern-day, multi-tasking world.
"There was a time when we were all able to
get into a car and drive, and listen to the
radio or talk to our family," Shauna Sauer
said. "Now, we feel like we've got to get just
everything done in the car, and I just think
we need to be a little bit...simpler."
"I think every state should have the (texting
ban) law," he said. "It might not make
changes right now, but (for) the younger
generations it will be an educational tool,
just like the seat belt (law).