RICHMOND, Va. — Julie Garner will never forget June 10, 2007, the day she received an unexpected call from a doctor at a Northern Virginia trauma unit.
“They said, ‘We need you to come up here. Your son has been in an accident.’ I wanted to know more, and that's all they can tell you,” Garner recalled.
Her son, Hunter, was a passenger in a car with a friend when it ran off the road and hit a tree. The driver died instantly, while Garner’s son fought for his life in the hospital.
“He looked perfectly normal. He looked beautiful. There were no scratches or anything on his body, but he was kept alive by machines, and his heart was no longer working. He wasn't breathing, and he was gone,” she remembered.
Amidst the grief, Garner, a longtime Martin Agency employee, founded Project Yellow Light to help channel her grief into awareness surrounding distracted driving.
Her nonprofit provides scholarship opportunities to students who promote safe driving habits through public service announcements (PSA).
17 years later, Garner has teamed up with the Martin Agency and Le Pac Productions to make one of her own highlighting the dangers of not focusing on the road.
“It is a semi-cruel reminder every day of how I lost my son, but it also is rewarding that I'm keeping his name alive and also helping other young people stay safe,” she explained.
The short film, titled "Love Story," features two young friends in a car recording a video for social media on a cell phone until they encounter another vehicle in their path.
“When I started Project Yellow Light, it was mostly texting and scrolling,” Garner said. “This is now about creating content in the car, which influencers are doing. All these young people think they can do it too, and sadly, they just feel invincible.”
Garner credits the Martin Agency creative team, Julian Cohen and Rushil Nadkarni, for helping her spread her safety message.
The nonprofit Drive Smart Virginia reported distracted driving causes nearly 80 percent of car crashes each year.
Garner’s group and Suzy Market Research surveyed 16- to 24-year-old drivers and found that 86 percent admitted to using social media in their car. More than 10 percent said they have been in an accident because of phone use.
The PSA debuts at 9 a.m. Wednesday on the Project Yellow Light website.
Garner believes these messages help keep her son’s name alive.
“Everybody deals with things personally, but I want to talk about him. I want to remember him,” she said.
CBS 6 is committed to sharing community voices on this important topic. Email your thoughts to the CBS 6 Newsroom.
📲: CONNECT WITH US
Blue Sky| Facebook| Instagram| X| Threads| TikTok| YouTube
