A 21-year-old man is facing a felony charge after police say his cellphone use behind the wheel led to the death of a pedestrian near the city's airport this past July. Logan Miller was driving a Toyota in the 5100 block of Falcon Road around 3:52 p.m. when he struck and killed 61-year-old David Johnstone, according to investigators.
According to MyStateline, court records and a witness statement said Johnstone had been parked on the side of Falcon Road taking pictures of the airport before the crash. That same witness account says Johnstone stepped backward into the road just before Miller's vehicle struck him. He was taken to the hospital, where he later died of his injuries.
Investigators forensically examined Miller's cellphone as part of the case, and the outlet's reporting states that timestamped records showed he had used Facebook shortly before the collision. Miller was subsequently charged with aggravated use of a communication device resulting in death, booked into the Winnebago County Jail, and released ahead of trial.
A Broader Pattern of Distraction Behind the Wheel
Illinois law bars drivers from manually operating an electronic device while behind the wheel, a prohibition that extends well beyond texting. The Illinois Department of Transportation states plainly that the law covers efforts “to text, stream video, participate in video conferences or access social media” while driving.
The scale of the problem statewide is significant. IDOT reported that 253 people died and 28,271 were injured in Illinois crashes involving distractions between 2020 and 2024, and that in 2024 alone, 51 deaths — 4.3% of the state's traffic fatalities that year — involved at least one distracted driver.
Separate figures compiled by Shaw Local covering 2019 through 2023 show 260 deaths and 29,458 injuries tied to distraction-related crashes in Illinois, with 58 deaths in 2023 alone accounting for 4.7% of that year's traffic fatalities. Nationally, NHTSA data cited in that same reporting found distraction-affected crashes climbed from 652,050 in 2022 to 732,914 in 2024, while crashes specifically involving cellphone use rose from 62,479 to 67,518 over that same span.
Other Illinois Cases Echo the Same Felony Charge
Miller's case is not the only one in the region built around the same statute. Shaw Local's reporting describes a Zion woman, Tynesha D. McCarty-Wroten, who prosecutors say was livestreaming on TikTok when she ran a red light and struck pedestrian Darren Lucas on November 3, 2024; she was charged with reckless homicide, a Class 3 felony, and aggravated use of an electronic communication device.
In La Salle County, the outlet's reporting notes that Daniel P. Olson was charged in July 2025 in connection with a November 29, 2024 crash that killed David A. Camp, with investigators determining he had accessed a website while driving and prosecutors alleging the same.
Rockford has also seen other recent fatal crashes tied to driver conduct. Rockford News First reported that Winnebago County deputies responded just before 2:30 a.m. on Oct. 17 to a serious two-vehicle crash at Mulford and Guilford roads, where a passenger died after being hospitalized and the driver of that vehicle suffered life-threatening injuries. That outlet reported 23-year-old Taylor Schwenk was charged with reckless homicide and two counts of aggravated driving under the influence following the crash.
