Werner Herzog has traveled over much of the planet making his 60 films: From Peru and Brazil for his feature film Fitzcarraldo, to Alaska and Antarctica for his documentaries Grizzly Man and Encounters at the End of the World.

His films are deep and probing, eschewing the fast and frenzied cuts common in many contemporary action thrillers and comedies. Herzog focuses his documentary camera on one person or scene for long periods of time, until hidden content is exposed and the story becomes deeply and emotionally clear.

This is precisely the technique Herzog used when filming From One Second to the Next, a documentary about texting and driving. The project was initially funded by AT&T and promoted as part of a safety campaign in cooperation with Sprint, T-Mobile, and Verizon. Studies have shown that people who text and drive are 23 times more likely to have a collision than other drivers. But how do you get that point across to motorists? AT&T contacted Herzog about using his documentary skills to put human faces to these statistics.

Herzog quickly agreed, and the result is a documentary that should be required viewing—and not just for teenagers and younger drivers. The documentary, already viewed more than three million times on YouTube, tells the story of four families whose lives were irrevocably altered by texting-and-driving collisions. In three of those stories, the driver whose texting caused the collision faces the camera and explains what happened. They are all riveting stories of avoidable collisions that were caused by the distraction of sending an insignificant message. As the film shows, each collision was followed by immediate and permanent consequences to the victims and to their families—as well as to the texting drivers, who now have to live with the consequences of their actions for the rest of their lives.

Whether you are a fan of Herzog’s other films, this is one that should not be missed.