When Paul Miller Jr. died in a crash on Route 33 in Monroe County, his mother successfully pushed for a law to band handheld cellphones when driving.

Eileen Miller’s 21-year-old son was an East Stroudsburg University student killed in a crossover crash on July 5, 2010. He was hit by a tractor-trailer driver who became distracted, crossed over two lanes, a grassy median and hit him head-on.

The cellphone law named after her son went into effect in 2025, but Eileen Miller didn’t stop.

On Wednesday, she gathered with state officials who announced that highway improvements are coming to the very stretch where her son was killed.

Pennsylvania Department of Transportation Secretary Mike Carroll made the announcement that safety improvements on Route 33 in Monroe County will happen nearly four years faster due to a new $13.2 million federal funding commitment from the department.

The project involves installing a concrete median barrier, roadway milling, concrete patching, paving, guide rail upgrades, drainage improvements and pavement markings on 8 miles of Route 33 from Lower Cherry Valley Road to Bossardsville Road in Hamilton Township. Work will be done for 4 miles in both directions.

Instead of going out for bid in April 2030, the project will go out for bid in September 2026 and is estimated to be completed in summer 2028.

In the area of Route 33 where the project is taking place, there have been 110 crashes over the past five years, with one fatal crash. That crash had three total fatalities.

“One death is too many,” Carroll said.

He credited Miller for her persistence and reminded people about the law banning handheld phones.

“If you are caught you will be pulled over,” Carroll said. The fine is not about the citation, he said. “It’s about saving lives.”

State Sen. Rosemary Brown said the Paul Miller Jr. law took 12 years to come to fruition. Now, Eileen Miller is “directly attacking the infrastructure” on the busy highway.

“So many people from Monroe County commute to jobs in Northampton and Lehigh counties,” she said.

Eileen Miller on Wednesday called that stretch “an extremely dangerous road.”

The narrow area doesn’t even have room for police to pull over, Miller said.

The new 50-inch barriers will keep tractor-trailers from crossing over in crashes like the one that killed her son.

“It will absolutely be saving lives,” she said.

The enhancements build on a project completed in 2024 that included median shoulder construction and median barrier upgrades, installed guide rail on the outer shoulder, and installed shoulder rumble strips from the Monroe/Northampton County line to Saylorsburg.

The estimated $13.2 million in federal funding will be invested through the statewide Secretary’s Discretionary Program, which allows the department and regional planning partners to advance much-needed projects in addition to other regional priorities on the state’s 12-year transportation program.