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Crash caught on camera could be classic example of distracted driving

NORTH READING, Mass. — A driver who recorded cell phone video of a distracted driver in front of him in North Reading on Wednesday ended up capturing video of the crash that ultimately unfolded.

The driver, Marcial Bones, said he was on Route 62 traveling northbound when he was cut off by another vehicle. He pulled out his cell phone and recorded what happened next.

“You could see her drifting not only to the left, but to the right. At one point it looks like she's going to hit a telephone pole,” Bones said.

Just over a minute and a couple close calls into the video, the driver in front of him veered into the opposite lane of traffic and collided head-on with a Jeep carrying a family including a baby.

"My heart stopped,” Bones said.

Nobody was seriously injured in either vehicle.

Bones said the driver in the other car was clearly looking down at her phone, but acknowledges he, too, was violating the law.

“I had my phone out. I'm preaching to the choir myself. I had it resting," he said. "I was not looking at my phone, was looking through it, just holding it there."

But Bones had seen the FOX25 story on the initiative of police departments across the state to crack down on distracted driving beginning on Friday. He felt it was important to document the crash and to share an important lesson.

"Take it to police, put it on YouTube and get it out there, that distracted driving is not healthy," Bones said. "Now I think I'm going to get myself a dash-cam."

The driver who crashed, a 33-year-old woman from Lawrence, faces charges of impeded operation of a motor vehicle (texting while driving), operating to endanger, and marked lanes violations. She will be summonsed to Woburn District Court.