“Enough is enough,” the head of the Minnesota State Patrol said Thursday of distracted driving — a day after a truck driver was charged in the Lake Elmo crash that killed a 54-year-old father.
The charges allege the truck driver was looking at his cellphone for eight seconds before slamming into the back of Robert J. Bursik’s car while he was stopped at a red light.
Col. Matt Langer said he called Bursik’s widow, Jessica, to express his condolences to her and their children.
“Make no mistake about it — we believe this crash was caused because the driver of this semi was paying attention to his phone and looking at his phone rather than driving,” Langer said. “… We see it too often, we see it too regularly, and Tuesday was another example where someone’s killed on our roads for no reason other than someone else’s poor choice to make that phone more important than driving. So, ‘Enough is enough’ is about all I can say. It’s what I told Jessica when I spoke to her on the phone (Thursday).”
The Washington County attorney’s office charged Samuel Hicks, 28, of Independence, Wis., with criminal vehicular homicide. He was going 63 mph and would have traveled about 740 feet in the time he looked at his phone, Langer said.
A warrant was issued for Hicks’ arrest and he turned himself in Thursday afternoon. A relative of Hicks said he could not comment, and an attorney for Hicks was not yet listed in the court record.
Video showed that Hicks “appears to be looking at his phone for at least an entire eight seconds before striking the vehicle,” Assistant Washington County County Attorney Siv Yurichuk said Thursday. “He doesn’t appear to look up … until … after the point of impact.”
Hicks made no effort to brake, according to the criminal complaint. Investigators cited footage from a rear- and front-facing camera in the semi’s cab that showed Hicks holding his cell phone in his right hand, the complaint states.
It’s uncommon for prosecutors to quickly charge someone in a fatal collision; crash reconstruction and investigation can be a lengthy process. But the video from Hicks’ truck is “incredibly clear” about what happened, Langer said.
“Every one of them is gut-wrenching, but … when you watch the video and you see some nice guy on his way home, sitting at a red light, probably thinking about where he’s going and maybe his family, maybe his wife, maybe his kids, maybe his work and when you watch that video and you see him killed … that’s horrific,” Langer said.
Bursik was an Amery, Wis., businessman and biology instructor at North Hennepin Community College in Brooklyn Park. He was married with four children, according to his obituary. He was also the owner and founder of Dragonfly Gardens, a nursery and greenhouse with locations in Amery and Turtle Lake, Wis. The business specializes in native plants, wetlands, forest wildflowers, annuals, perennials, herbs and vegetables.
A post on the Dragonfly Gardens Facebook page on Thursday said: “Honor him by doing something ‘green’ this year – bonus points if you include someone you love. And please, please, put down your phones while driving.”
Bursik’s Toyota Scion was so damaged that the make and model weren’t immediately identifiable. He was pronounced dead at the scene.
“The back end was pushed up so far all the way into the driver’s seat,” Yurichuk said. “The sides of the vehicle were completely mangled. They were unable to extract him at the scene, so the vehicle was towed to a local fire department. My understanding is they spent hours taking the car apart in order to take his body out.”
Hicks had been driving his truck since about 4:45 a.m. that day. Yurichuk said she didn’t have the name of the company he was working for, but she believes he was making deliveries to convenience stores. State troopers responded to the crash at 12:13 p.m. on Minnesota 36 in Lake Elmo.
At first, Hicks told investigators that he observed a green light at Lake Elmo Avenue from a distance but then became distracted by another vehicle, according to the complaint.
But upon further questioning, he admitted he was using his phone while texting with his girlfriend and using the Zillow real estate app to look up information about a house, the complaint said.
Yurichuk said she believes Hicks has no criminal record. In a criminal vehicular operation case for someone without a criminal background, state guidelines recommend a four-year prison sentence, Yurichuk said.
One in four reported motor vehicle crashes in Minnesota is directly attributed to a distracted driver, and an average of 65 people a year die in the state because of distracted driving, said Mike Hanson, director of the Department of Public Safety’s Office of Traffic Safety.
Enforcement is a piece of the puzzle, Langer said.
But, Langer added, “with the amount of distracted driving on our roads, we’re not going to enforce our way out of this problem, so it’s enforcement and it’s education and above all else it’s common sense. We shouldn’t need a law to tell us to pay attention while driving. We should just be paying attention while driving because we know it’s the right thing to do.”
Mary Divine contributed to this report.