Patterson Law Group is delighted to announce this year’s winner of our bi-annual #TextFreeForTita scholarship, Erin Casini! We want to thank all of the students who entered our contest. Thank you for doing your best to raise awareness of this serious issue facing our country.
Our scholarship is designed to allow students to raise awareness of distracted driving. Using the hashtag #TextFreeForTita, students get the opportunity to remind the world of the beautiful lives lost because of distracted driving accidents.
We receive many wonderful submissions each year and are delighted to see this important issue coming to attention in so many different spaces. To encourage and support this awareness, we offer the winner of the scholarship the chance to earn $1,000 to use towards educational expenses.
This year, Erin created a stunning video, #textfreefortita Distracted Driving, in memory of Tita, a 12-year-old girl who was killed by a distracted driver. Erin’s work inspires watchers to drive with attention because no text is worth a life. In her own words:
Stop distracted driving and save lives.
Erin earned her bachelor’s degree from the University of Oregon with a major in Classics and a minor in history. During her time at the University, she devoted herself to studying the world, learning about people and the important issues that have affected their lives throughout history. She finished her bachelor’s degree in good standing, with an average 3.10 GPA.
She graduated in 2017 and is now planning to study at the Willamette University College of Law. Erin has consistently shown that she has a passion for helping people live safer, healthier lives.
Erin knows that #textfreefortita is more than just an opportunity to win a scholarship. It’s also an opportunity to raise awareness for an important issue facing the citizens of America.
In recent years, the number of people dying from distracted driving has risen significantly, resulting in over 3,000 U.S. deaths in 2019. That’s an increase from 2018 in the United States when over 2,800 people lost their lives in accidents caused by distracted drivers and over 400,000 people were injured.
According to recent Texas statistics, at least 3,842 crashes were caused by cell phone use in 2019 in Texas alone. Additionally, 99,470 accidents were caused by driver distraction or inattention.
25% of distracted driving crashes in the United States were caused by teen and young adult drivers, which is why Erin’s dedication to raising awareness is so important to us. We love to see young people taking the initiative to help solve the problems facing their community.
At Patterson Law Group, we are devoted to helping raise awareness of the damages that can so easily be caused by distracted driving. We have helped many people who were victims of car accidents caused by distracted drivers.
Whether these drivers were texting, talking to others in the vehicle, attending to personal care, or eating a burger. We know that a simple decision to wait a few more minutes could have saved lives. We want to reduce the number of distracted drivers, but we can’t do it alone.
With help from dedicated young people like Erin, we hope to end distracted driving and save thousands of lives from injury, heartache, and misery.
Tita, our inspiration for this scholarship, was only 12 at the time of her death. She was passionate about loving people and deeply involved in competitive cheer with dreams of a lifetime in the sport. But her dreams were taken away when a distracted driver crashed into her car, killing her and her mother.
Because of a single text, Tita is gone, and the people who knew and loved her were left to face a life without her.
We won’t forget Tita or the thousands like her who have died and suffered because of these distracted driving accidents. Instead, we use this scholarship as an opportunity to give back to a community of students dedicated to changing the world by ending distracted driving.
We thank Erin for reminding us yet again that we have the chance to change these statistics and save more people by paying attention to the road.
Congratulations Erin! We are delighted to see your dedication to using your talents to change the world. And thank you all for your submissions.
If you are a college student interested in getting involved or know someone who is, please look at our scholarship page to find out all the details behind the #TextFreeForTita campaign.
