A devastating tragedy that cut short the life of WBNS-TV sports reporter Dom Tiberi’s 21-year-old daughter has given him the opportunity to perhaps save many other lives.
Maria Tiberi, a senior majoring in graphic design at Ohio State University, died on Sept. 17, 2013 when her car collided with the rear end of a semi-trailer truck stopped on Interstate 270. Police believe some sort of distraction led to the crash.
“They’ve never been able to determine exactly what happened and that’s the part that kills us. She was wearing a seat belt, driving the speed limit and her phone was locked and in her purse on the back seat. But she must have been doing something that distracted her because you don’t just run into the back of a semi on I-270,” Tiberi said.
“The hardest thing I’ve ever had to do was to say goodbye to her in her room at Grant Hospital. As I tell kids today, it’s something you never want to do to your parents, brothers or sisters – to have them in the place I was that night. My heart goes out to any parent who’s lost a child.
“I was so lost after Maria died that I didn’t know what to do. I knew that if I went back on the air, I’d have to embrace what happened. Fortunately, while I was off the air, a couple things occurred.
“The first was that I found out that car crashes are the leading cause of death in the United States for people ages 8 to 24,” killing more than 3,000 people in that age group in 2023, the last year for which complete figures are available, according to the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety. “I had no idea this was the case and I don’t think many other people do,” Tiberi said. “I knew this was something I needed to tell people and wanted to do it in a way they’d remember.
“Then I sat down with the late Rita Wolfe, a member of the family which at that time owned WBNS and The Columbus Dispatch, and talked about what I wanted to do. She came up with the idea that became Maria’s Message,” a program that Tiberi estimates has been presented to more than 500,000 people in the past 11 years and is one of two ways the Tiberi family has been honoring Maria.
The other is the Maria Tiberi Foundation, which raises money to provide driving simulators to schools, sponsor a summertime defensive driving course and present a $1,000 scholarship annually to a senior at Maria’s alma mater, Dublin Coffman High School, who wants to major in media or graphic arts programs in college.
Tiberi said more than 500,000 people, including 170 student groups and employees of companies such as the Nationwide, State Auto and Encova insurance companies, American Electric Power and Columbia Gas of Ohio, have taken part in the Maria’s Message program, a 30-minute presentation.
He said he also has received great cooperation from the Ohio State University athletics department. Head football coach Ryan Day had him present the program to his team twice and it has been viewed by members of several other teams.
“I always start the program by telling students ‘If you take nothing else away from this, I want you to know that you are loved. Your life matters. People care about you. I couldn’t bring my daughter home, but I want you to come home,’” he said. “It’s a very painful thing to do every time, but I don’t want anyone else to go through this.
“Then we have a first responder talk about what it’s like to deal with the type of situation that involved Maria. We show a short video on what happened that night and end by having students take a pledge to keep their hands on the wheel and their eyes on the road and to be defensive, not distracted, when they drive.
“I tell them, ‘You may think this is all just a lot of talk and this kind of thing won’t happen to you, but these things do happen,’” he said. “I ask them to raise their hands if they know someone who was hurt in a car accident and usually three-fourths of them do. Then I ask if they know someone who died in a crash and probably half of them raise their hands. All of a sudden they realize it can affect them.
“We don’t ask for questions afterward because we want to keep the presentation short. The best thing about what happens afterward is that so many kids just want to come up and hug me and say they’re going to go home and hug their parents and brothers and sisters,” Tiberi said.
“Then I get postings on social media or emails from parents who say that’s what happened and their kids told them how much the program made them appreciate their families. This makes me feel good and know that what I’m doing is worth something. I don’t know if it’s saved anybody’s life, but it’s possible.”
To date, the Maria Tiberi Foundation has placed 96 driving simulators at four schools, most recently at Columbus St. Charles Preparatory School, which has 21 simulators in its robotics building. The Tolles Technical Center in Plain City, Eastland-Fairfield Career and Technical Schools in Groveport and the Fort Hayes Metropolitan Education Center in Columbus each have 25 simulators.
Because schools in Ohio no longer offer driver education classes, the simulators are available on nights and weekends and for use during school field trips.
Tiberi said the foundation donated 10 simulators for use in Springfield to help immigrants there learn to drive. Each site has an interpreter and an instructor providing free training. The foundation also is working with the Ohio Highway Patrol on expanding the program statewide.
Each simulator costs $15,000 and has 16 lesson plans that teach skills such as speed control, navigating distractions and following at a safe distance. Participants also can practice driving in various weather conditions. Tiberi said the units have provided him with an experience realistic enough to make him forget he wasn’t on the road.
The foundation’s summertime defensive driving course is offered at no charge three times during the summer at the Columbus headquarters of Safelite auto glass. The daylong event is conducted by professional drivers, is for young people with 10 to 15 hours of driving experience and includes drills in wet-pavement braking, emergency lane changes and skid-pad maneuvers, plus classroom instruction.
Maria’s Message has been credited with assisting in the passage of an Ohio law allowing police to stop drivers solely for “using, holding or physically supporting” a cellphone while driving. Tiberi was present when the legislation was signed in 2023 by Gov. Mike DeWine, who himself has experienced the death of a daughter in an auto accident.
The state also has toughened requirements for young people learning to drive. Last year, the Ohio Legislature approved a law requiring anyone 21 or younger to log 50 hours of supervised driving and complete a state-approved training course before applying for a driver’s license.
Tiberi, who has been at WBNS since 1981, graduated from Columbus St. Francis DeSales High School and majored in journalism and public relations and played football at Otterbein University. He and his wife, Terri, have a 35-year-old daughter, a 30-year-old son and three grandchildren.
He has gained national recognition for Maria’s Message, receiving the 2023 Celebration of Service award in the large-market category from the National Association of Broadcasters. He said the program is the first of its type in the nation and believes it may still be the only one.
“I wasn’t real happy with God when we lost Maria,” Tiberi said. “I don’t know why God does what He does, but I’ve come to realize that spreading Maria’s message is my mission, and I know that Maria is in a better place.
“I’d never have been able to get up 170 times and share the most painful experience of my life without her acting as an angel on my shoulder.”
For more information about Maria’s Message, go to www.10tv.com/marias/message. To donate and to learn more about the Maria Tiberi Foundation, go to www.mariatiberifooundation.org.