Anthony, Demetrius and Isaac Branca
Every parent knows the panic of losing sight of their child in a crowded place. Usually, the feeling’s only temporary. But when you get the call that your child has been killed, that panic becomes a suffocating nightmare that you never fully wake from.
That has been my reality since my son Anthony was killed by a distracted driver. His death was preventable. Since then, I have spent more than a decade advocating for safer driving laws so other families can avoid similar nightmares.
Florida’s legislators are in a special session in Tallahassee. They have a chance to do something that 33 other states have already done: pass a statewide hands-free driving law.
But it appears they will leave without doing so.
Driving is the most dangerous activity most of us will do on any given day. Every time we get behind the wheel, we accept responsibility for our own safety and the safety of everyone around us. The driver who killed my son abandoned that responsibility, and Florida’s laws made it too easy for him to do so.
Distracted driving is not a personal choice that only affects the person making it. It is a reckless decision that puts every driver, passenger, cyclist, and pedestrian nearby at risk. Traffic laws exist because everyone has the right to arrive home alive. That is why we prohibit drunk driving, require seatbelts, and enforce speed limits. A hands-free law belongs in that same category.
The evidence is clear: high-visibility enforcement changes behavior. People are less likely to break the law when they believe they will be caught. We have seen this play out with red-light cameras, speed zone cameras, and school bus cameras, tools that have helped hold dangerous drivers accountable and deterred the kind of reckless behavior that kills people. Violations recorded by Florida’s red-light cameras have fallen nearly 25 percent over the past decade despite traffic increasing by roughly 30 percent during the same period.
The prevalence of distracted driving is also influenced by stronger laws and consistent enforcement. Iowa officials credited its recently passed hands-free law with the significant decline in traffic fatalities in the state. Iowa announced the lowest traffic fatalities in 100 years for 2025. Its hands-free law went into effect on July 1, 2025.
That tells a story about deterrence. When accountability is certain, dangerous behavior declines.
Meanwhile, people in Florida keep dying. Last year, more than 52,900 crashes in Florida were tied to distracted driving, over 2,100 serious injuries and more than 300 deaths, the worst toll since 2021. A crash happens somewhere in this state every 44 seconds. One in seven involves a distracted driver. However, these numbers are probably undercounted by as much as a third, according to a 2019 National Highway Traffic Safety Administation study.
A 2013 study conducted by National Safety Council, an advocacy group, found several barriers to accurate data collection of distracted driving statistics such as reliance on drivers self reporting and inconsistent reporting methods from various law enforcement agencies. In a CBS news story about the NSC study, officials said “the underreporting makes the problem of distracted driving appear less significant than it actually is, and impedes efforts to win passage of tougher laws.”
For three years, a hands-free bill has been introduced in the Florida legislature. For three years, it has failed. The most recent effort didn’t even make it out of committee.
Really, this comes down to mutual accountability. We all want the freedom to travel our roads safely. That freedom only exists when all drivers accept responsibility, or are held accountable, for the lives around them.
No one wants to get a ticket. But no one wants to walk in my shoes, either.
If holding drivers accountable helps spare even one family from a tragedy like Anthony’s, that is more than worth it.
Demetrius Branca founded the Anthony Phoenix Branca Foundation to educate the public, promote safer driving habits and honor Anthony’s memory by creating a “revolution” to make roads safer. He can be reached at demetrius@APBfoundation.com
