Kaytlyn Thomas
WAUSAU, WI (WSAU-WAOW) – Kronenwetter police say a wrong-way driver is to blame for 18-year-old Kaytlyn Thomas’ death.
Both drivers were killed in a head-on wreck on I-39 in Kronenwetter on July 12.
Family members are now calling for a new vehicle safety law.
Her dad Ron is now spearheading an effort to make accident prevention technology systems mandatory in new vehicles starting in 2025. He calls it Kaytlyn’s law.
“Because we’re all more distracted, others are more distracted, so even if we’re not, others tend to be. We always seem to be in a hurry.”
The technology, he says, will be able to detect impaired or distracted drivers, and either pull their focus back on the road, or take over the car and slowly pull them over. It’s something he says will make an enormous impact. “Based on government studies, we’re losing about a trillion dollars of economic impact because of auto accidents, so just improving, or reducing and preventing some of them is a huge benefit to all of us,” Ron said.
Ron’s efforts for this new law are barely underway, but he says he’ll keep fighting. Not just to protect other families from what they’re going through, but because it’s what his daughter would’ve wanted.
Her family is now raising money not only to support the creation of the law, but to also start a scholarship in her name.
Kaytlyn wanted to become a model, and hoped to move to New York City before her life was cut short.
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