CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas — Data from the Texas Department of Transportation shows that hundreds of Texans are killed each year, simply because a motorist was distracted by their mobile devices.
3NEWS spoke with the mother of AJ Benavidez, an Alice teenager who was driving back home from South Padre Island one Labor Day weekend a decade ago, before running into the back of an 18-wheeler.
AJ's mother Arely Mathews said he died instantly.
"He would be 28, and I see his friends and they're having babies and getting married and doing all these things that I'm never going to see AJ do," she said.
AJ was an active student at Alice High School, playing different sports throughout his academic career.
"Football, he was #27 and then he played for the golf team and then he did track," she said.
Mathews said AJ was on his phone, which is what caused the fatal accident.
"He got on Twitter and was posting 'Back to Corpus. Back to work. Saving money for my next concert.' And he didn't see the 18-wheeler in front of him," she said.
At the time of the accident, Mathews was out of state when she got the call about her son.
"His pants that they cut when they were trying to work on him, his underwear that they cut full of blood and stuff. That's all I get to take home," she said.
Mathews said she hopes her loss will help other parents have conversations with their kids about safety.
"Talk to your children about it because it is the hardest thing to go through and it does affect you forever. He's never coming back," she said.
Distracted driving deaths in Texas increased by 10 percent in 2022, claiming the lives of 481 people and seriously injuring another 2,820. Corpus Christi Lt. Michael Pena said this is something local law enforcement is seeing far to often.
"I'll see this from time to time with people driving around with their cellphone right here and thinking it's okay. It's not. It's in your hands. If it's in your hands, it's illegal. If your phones off and it's in your hands, it's illegal," he said.
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