Texting and driving – The personal injury will last longer than the moment it takes to look down at that phone
It’s happened again – another senseless accident caused by texting behind the wheel of a car.
The Sun Sentinel reported on Oct. 20 that a teen, apparently celebrating his 18th birthday, allegedly stole a BMW and was involved in a hit-and-run crash that killed another driver in Coral Springs. http://tinyurl.com/gwgqlqz. The teen faces multiple charges stemming from the Sept. 25 crash. According to the newspaper, a passenger told police that the driver was distracted “using his cellphone and not paying attention to the road,” losing control of the car while he sped along State Road 7 and attempted to turn onto Sample Road.
It is yet another incident in a frustrating – and often tragic – epidemic law enforcement officials face, in a state which does not make texting and driving illegal. Entities such as The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration’s National Center for Statistics and Analysis, along with the U.S. Department of Transportation, as well as local police, constantly work to reduce the occurrence of distracted driving and raise awareness of the dangers of distracted driving in Ft. Lauderdale.
Following are recent statistics from the NHTSA:
- Ten percent of fatal crashes, 18 percent of injury crashes, and 16 percent of all police-reported motor vehicle traffic crashes in 2014 were reported as distraction-affected crashes.
- In 2014, there were 3,179 people killed and an estimated additional 431,000 injured in motor vehicle crashes involving distracted drivers.
- Ten percent of all drivers 15 to 19 years old involved in fatal crashes were reported as distracted at the time of the crashes. This age group has the largest proportion of drivers who were distracted at the time of the crashes.
- In 2014, there were 520 nonoccupants killed in distraction-affected crashes.
Everyone knows that texting and distracted driving in general causes accidents and yet, more than not, people are so prone to respond to that ping as they drive that they often disregard that the odds of causing or being involved in a traffic accident behind the wheel are stacked against them.
State lawmakers have addressed the problem with distracted driving, particularly involving cell phone use, but nothing yet has been written into law, so the millions of people on Florida’s roadways still have to rely on their own common sense and the common sense of other drivers to keep themselves safe on the roads. It is a problem, the prospect of legislating what a person can and cannot do in their own car versus dealing with a rising transportation safety problem.
One thing is for certain: The personal injury caused by someone who causes an accident while driving with disregard to their own safety or the safety of others can last infinitely longer than the seconds it takes to respond to a text message while driving.
Let’s look at the variables that come into play as you drive and text and how it takes away from your attention to the road. When you keep your phone in your hand or next to you as you drive and a text message or email – or phone call – comes in, your focus immediately leaves the road and turns to what you feel is the most important thing at the moment: getting and responding to that message. It doesn’t matter that the light has turned red, that a car has turned in front of you, that traffic ahead of you has stopped – the most important thing to you, on a highway occupied by hundreds of unpredictable drivers – is getting that message on the phone and responding to it.
It has been proven that a person who is sending a text message as he drives will look away from the road for 4.6 seconds. A driver traveling at 55 miles per hour – on major highways often over speeds of 55 –could travel more than the length of a football field in the time it takes to send a text. That is an awful lot of roadway covered with the attention diverted from the road. Is it any wonder that car crashes, some severe and fatal, are the result, and that the incidents of accidents increase when cell phone use is involved verses when it’s not?
Anyone involved in a motor vehicle crash should immediately seek medical attention and contact a Ft Lauderdale personal injury litigation attorney for counsel and advice. You may be entitled to receive compensation for your injuries, medical bills, pain and suffering and loss of income – don’t let the other driver’s negligence affect the rest of your life.
Give your fellow drivers on the road a break and show that you can be responsible without needing a law that forces you to … and levels a fine if you’re not. The prospect of a ticket should be the least of the outcomes that concerns you.
h should contact a Ft Lauderdale personal injury litigation attorney for counsel/advice.
You could receive compensation for medical bills, pain & suffering after a crash – don’t let the other driver’s negligence affect your life.
