Many California drivers are aware of the new cell phone laws enacted in July that prohibited the use of cell phones, and although text messaging isn’t banned as well, it still remains a danger to the rest of the community.In fact, texting might have been the cause for the death of two Moorpark College students, 19-year-old Aida Magdaleno and 38-year-old Christopher Aiken, in the Metrolink 111 crash, whose engineer might have been texting before the crash.”I was saddened by this news and my thoughts and deepest sympathy go out to his family and friends, as well as those of all of the people affected,” said history teacher Vanessa Crispin-Peralta, who had Aiken as a student during the summer semester.L.A. County Sheriff’s Dept. Spokesperson Steve Whitmore believes that texting while driving poses a serious threat to other drivers on the road.”Drivers should not be text messaging when they are driving,” Whitmore said. “It takes away from the focus at hand, which is safely navigating the streets.”Investigators are still looking into whether the engineer’s text messaging is to blame in the Sept. 12 Metrolink crash that killed 25 people and left more than 130 people injured. The National Transportation Board is investigating whether the engineer could have been distracted by texting when he failed to apply the safety brakes and bypassed three warning signals before the head-on collision with a Union Pacific freight train near Chatsworth. The NTSB issued a statement on Sept. 17, confirming that “the engineer had sent and received text messages on the day of the accident, including some while he was on duty.” The NTSB is working on determining the exact times of the engineer’s texts to see how they correlate with his actions before the crash.Aida Magdaleno, a graduate of Moorpark High School and student of California State Northrigde, was on her way home to Camarillo, to celebrate her nephew’s baptism. She was only 19 years old.While Moorpark College President Pam Eddinger never knew Magdaleno personally, she was devastated to hear one of her students was lost in the crash.”We have lost one of our own students in this tragedy,” said Eddinger. “Ms. Aida Magdaleno was a student at MC for a number of semesters, and was well on her way of completing her degree.”Christopher Aiken, 38, was another Moorpark College student to be lost in the crash. Aiken is succeeded by his wife and two step daughters.A candle light vigil will be held for Aida Magdaleno Sept. 24 from 7:00-9:00 p.m. in front of Building 4 in Student Housing at California State Northridge. Procession will then be held in the Chicano/o House, where a microphone will also be open.Magdaleno’s family only has one request for those attending the vigil, and that’s “remember her with a smile…”Now, as one of the direct responses to the train crash, the California Public Utilities Commission banned the personal use of cellular electronics for train engineers last Thursday.Measures are also being taken by California’s two senators, Diane Feinstein and Barbara Boxer, who are introducing a new legislation that would force high-risk lines to have collision avoidance systems in place by 2012 and all major lines by 2014, according to “The New York Times.”Moorpark College students were surprised to hear that text messaging might have been a leading cause of the collision.Ashley Oppenberg, 19, a social work major thought that the engineer was irresponsible.”You shouldn’t be on your cell phone when you are responsible for that many people,” she said. “I do believe it’s unsafe, even though I myself do it. I have talked to police officers and paramedics before who said they have either found people dead or alive in the worst or most minor accidents reaching for their cells to respond to a text.”Psychology major Nicole Gershenson, 19, also agreed that the engineer was using his cell phone at an inappropriate time.”I think that if you are going to be working with machinery, phones should be restricted until break,” said Gershenson. “Me and plenty of other people do it, but it’s really distracting and I think there is a rise in rear ending accidents because of it.”