Sign Honors Life of Bolingbrook Boy

Charlene Laino and Kathy Bajek were among the friends and family attending a sign unveiling Friday on Plainfield-Naperville Road. The sign that was unveiled memorializes the life of Adam Miller, who would have turned 8 last week.

Laino and Bajek said they came to know Adam’s mother as she grieved for her son.

Cheryl Miller, of Bolingbrook, began attending a group for grieving parents at St. Raphael Catholic Church. It was there that she began sharing her desire to have a roadside memorial sign in Adam’s honor.

Miller learned that since her son’s death wasn’t related to a drunken driving accident that a memorial sign could not be placed on the roadside. She was told she could talk to her representatives in Springfield, and she did.

Miller became a proponent of penalties for inattentive driving, for expanding roadside memorials to include those memorializing victims of distracted drivers and also allowing families of victims to make an impact statement in court regarding a defendant’s criminal conduct in cases related to motor vehicle code violations.

Adam was 5 when he was killed. After his father John stopped to fix a tire on Plainfield-Naperville Road a distracted driver who was reaching for a cigar slammed into the rear of Miller’s vehicle at 55 mph and Adam was killed.

Miller said that everyone on the road is someone’s child and that it’s imperative that people pay attention.

Laino and Bajek said Miller talked up her plans at the group’s meetings and the women began to support her in her goal.

“She’s a little spitfire,” Laino said.

The women agreed that their biggest concern about distracted driving is people who text while driving.

“You here so much about drunken driving but not so much about distracted driving,” Laino said.

Bajek added, “It needs more exposure.”