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The mangled remains of Mark Schulz's bicycle are in storage in the UNCG campus.

He won't ever ride it again. It is twisted beyond repair.

But it does hold some sentimental value. Schulz, an avid cyclist since sixth grade, bought it for only $30 from a colleague who bought it from someone else who swears the original owner was the late baseball star Kirby Puckett of the Minnesota Twins.

He says he'll probably make an artistic statement with the crumpled tangle of rubber and metal.

"I'm actually thinking about making it a sculpture," he said, "and putting it on campus somewhere near the site. That's the grandiose plan."

"The site" is where Schulz was nearly killed in March 2008, when a car smashed into his bike and sent him to the hospital.

The driver was texting.

Schulz, a trim, bearded man with an easy smile, is a professor in UNCG's School of Health & Human Performance. One of his research specialties: bicycle injuries.

As for what happened to him on March 26, 2008, Schulz remembers everything. And nothing.

"I was working late," he said.

It was a Wednesday night and he was making his customary 3-mile commute by bike from campus to his house near High Point Road: A right on Walker. A right on Spring Garden. A left on Aycock ...

"The last thing I remember was that left turn on Aycock," he said.

The next thing he knew he was lying in an ambulance being told he was going to Moses Cone Hospital. "And that I was going to live."

His nose was bloody, his knees and hands covered with scrapes and scratches.

He does not recall any pain at that point, but the damage was considerable: a broken sternum, a broken left kneecap, broken ribs, a concussion, five compressed disks in his back.

Greensboro Police Officer M.P. Kees told the News & Record that the driver had been "text messaging on her phone when she looked up and saw a male on a bicycle.

"She attempted to swerve left to avoid contact with the bicycle but was unsuccessful."

Schulz missed the rest of the semester. When he returned to class in August, he was forced to wear what he called his "turtle suit" -- a hard plastic brace from his waist to his neck.

As it turns out, the woman who hit him, Amy Dunnuck of Julian, was familiar to a number of people on campus.

"Some of my students had gone to high school with her," Schulz said.

She has not attempted to contact Schulz nor has he attempted any contact with her.

"I might try to have some now," he said. "I think it's standard procedure for insurance companies to tell clients not to talk to the victim."

Schulz admits somewhat wearily that he has become a poster child for the hazards of texting while driving. But he agreed with friends and colleagues that the problem needs more attention and he gives it a face, so he'll gladly oblige.

One colleague even has visions of Schulz teaming with Dunnuck to advocate against texting while driving. Schulz can see that, too.

When he returned to class from his injury, he had no choice but to explain to students how he had been hurt.

"It was obvious that I was recovering from something, but I had to be careful not to be preachy. I don't find myself to be an effective preacher."

As for the bigger picture, it so happened the day Schulz met with his interviewer on a shady bench in front of UNCG's Elliott Center, a national summit on texting while driving was convening in Washington.

"To put it plainly, distracted driving is a menace to society," U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood said in opening remarks.

Nationally, 5,870 people died in vehicle crashes caused by some type of driver distraction, notes a report issued in September by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. Not all of those accidents involved texting or talking on cell phones, but transportation officials have cited the practice as a leading cause of distractions.

To North Carolina's credit, the legislature passed a ban on texting while driving this year. It takes effect in December, meaning, for now it is still legal, though patently stupid, to send text messages and read e-mail while driving.

Schulz praises the law but wishes it went further.

"It's a good first step," he said. "The punishments are not huge, but they're bigger than a slap on the hand. They're more than chump change for parents if their kid gets in trouble."

The penalties include a $100 fine plus court costs, but a violation would not add points to a driver's record or incur a higher insurance rate.

Schulz wishes the law would have been paired with resources to raise awareness and to fund concentrated enforcement.

"I imagine that police and law enforcement look at it as an unfunded mandate," he said.

He also wishes the texting law would have added the same level of focus that finally made mandatory seatbelt use laws more effective.

As for the national effort to ban texting in all states, Schulz strongly favors it.

And even as his students try to explain to him why texting is so seductive to them, he still doesn't get it.

Meanwhile, he still rides a new bike to and from work, but along a different route. "One of my first decisions after the accident is that I can reduce my risk. I don't go on any roads where the speed limit is above 35 miles an hour."

He now avoids Aycock Street, where the crash occurred. He also avoids longer solo rides, something he loved to do before the accident. "But life is all about compromises, I guess."

As a cool breeze blew on a sun-dappled morning, a steady stream of students came and went, many with their arms extended and their heads bowed almost reverently toward the ground.

They were texting.