Hang it up!

Using a cell phone behind the wheel can send you to prison or the morgue

Joseph Baca sounds like a regular guy doing an average job driving a cement truck.

Jesse Hawkins served his country as a Marine before going to work for Lockheed Martin.

Their paths tragically crossed on Dec. 4, 2013, in a cruel — but avoidable — twist of fate. Baca — driving the cement truck and talking on his cellphone — ran a stop sign on Kirtland Air Force Base and hit Hawkins, who was riding a bicycle.

Hawkins was fatally injured, pronounced dead at the scene by medical personnel. And Baca is now headed to federal prison for the next 2 1/2 years after pleading guilty to involuntary manslaughter in Hawkins’ death.

A Lockheed Martin spokesman said at the time that Hawkins had been with the company for 18 years and was program manager and site lead for the U.S. Air Force Distributed Mission Operations Center at KAFB. His was a talented and productive life cut short.

Baca, meanwhile, was sentenced on Oct. 17 in a case prosecuted by the U.S. Attorney’s Office because it occurred on a federal military installation. A prison sentence is justified, though it won’t heal the wounds of Hawkins’ loved ones or bring him back.

But one man’s death and another’s new life as an inmate does send a message to the thousands of motorists who drive distracted every single day, either talking on a cellphone or texting.

Don’t do it.

You could kill someone.

And you could end up in prison.

While New Mexico has long battled drunken driving and has yet to successfully target the ranks of drugged drivers — including those who have ingested marijuana — there is strong evidence to suggest distracted driving is every bit as dangerous as DUI — or more — even though we treat them differently. For example, Metropolitan Court tracks DUI cases but not those involving distracted driving.

But as the Hawkins family knows all too well, the latter can be just as deadly.

We all understand — or should — that you can’t down a few shots or beers and get behind the wheel. But that darned cellphone is different. It seems so innocent, and everything on it so very important. Too often, we can’t seem to just put it away. We’ve just gotta hit the autodial, take a peek, send a reply.

But consider this: According to the Arrivealivetour. com, 660,000 people are using an electronic device while driving at any given time. Sending or reading a simple text takes five seconds. If you are driving at 55 mph, you can cover the length of a football field in that time. And distracted driving accounted for 3,477 deaths and 391,000 injuries in 2015 compared with 10,265 deaths and 290,000 injuries related to drunken driving.

And still, people think it won’t hurt anything to dial a number or send/read a quick text.

Before you reach for that phone, think about Jesse Hawkins and Joseph Baca. About lives lost and lives ruined.

It’s not worth it.