Drivers may notice Dr. John Hoffman’s message on local billboards telling them to stop texting while driving.
Hoffman, a Danville chiropractor who treats patients with car wreck-related injuries, spent thousands of dollars of his own money to place the messages on four of his six billboard advertisements in the Danville and the Pittsylvania County area.
More and more, he found his clients had been involved in wrecks because of a driver who was texting.

“It’s a real crisis,” Hoffman said. “ … I felt like I should say something.”

He began asking people if they ever texted while driving. The answer more often than not was they do.

A driver who is distracted by texting or reading texts or emails is the safety equivalent of a drunk driver, Hoffman said, citing a University of Utah study.

“It really, really is a big problem,” Hoffman said. “It’s like you suddenly have drunk drivers all over the road.”

Danville Police Chief Philip Broadfoot said it was pretty pervasive in the city because it’s so easy to do. While state law prohibits texting or reading texts or emails while driving, police can’t really enforce it, he said. The law makes it a secondary offense, meaning the officer must pull the driver over for a different offense.

Additionally, it’s hard to prove someone was texting or driving. Broadfoot said police have to rely on voluntary compliance.

The Virginia Tech Transportation Institute recently reported that a texting driver is 23 times more likely to get into a crash than a non-texting driver, according to a news release.

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