“I had my brother in my hand, and all of a sudden, my hand was empty.”
The film opens with a line that sets the stage for “One Second to The Next,” a 35-minute documentary that explores how quickly lives can be devastated by text-and-drive car accidents. AT&T reached out to German storyteller, award-winning opera director and filmmaker Werner Herzog to create a film that’s both an emotionally resonating documentary and an informative PSA. The project is part of the It Can Wait campaign, an awareness program that AT&T, T-Mobile, Verizon Wireless and Sprint have teamed up to create. Herzog’s film follows four stories featuring testimonials that immerse us in the pain of victims and the regret of drivers behind the wheel.
“I got out of my car and i ran back towards the accident. There was a man on the phone. I heard him say that there were two men in the car that… that weren’t breathing. I look at that picture, and all I can think about it those families, those two men. While i was driving that texting and driving was important to me than those two men were to their families.”
Herzog doesn’t shy away from the tragic. A driver describes his memory: one second he’s reading a message from his wife, the next, he feels a crash, glass shattering; he realizes what he’s done, and emotions flood. He steps out of the car, sees the damage, finds out who he’s hurt and is left to live with what he’s done. We know it could just as easily be us. The man cries: where we’d normally expect a cut-away, there’s none.
“I wish so bad I could go back to that day and change my focus… It’s life, you get one chance, and you live with the choices you make.”
“One Second to The Next” should be mandatory watching in Driver’s Ed. Watch it below:
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Farrah Khaled is an intern at the Toronto Standard. Follow her on twitter at @farkhaly.
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