Posted in Personal Injury
If you have been injured by someone who was playing with their phone instead of paying attention to the road please feel free to contact us today for a free case evaluation.
Handheld phone use and texting is prohibited in all of the District of Columbia. Unfortunately, all of us have been on the Capital Beltway and looked over and seen someone doing 70MPH while looking down at their cell phone instead of paying attention to where they are going.
Drivers are doing much more than calling their friends. Some are taking selfies or checking their Facebook or Instagram feeds. In fact, a study by AT&T shows that as many as 40% of cell phone owners use social media while driving, and 10% of people are even engaging in video chats.
The negligent and reckless behavior doesn’t stop there. A recent trend has been people taking selfies of themselves on Snapchat using the “speed filter”, which applies their current speed to their selfie. Some users are taking selfies at speeds of over 100MPH. CNN just highlighted how personal injury lawyers are now targeting Snapchat for potential crash suits. It will be interesting to see how these cases go; will Snapchat be held liable for injuries? The CNN article cites The Law Offices of Steers and Associates who have been keeping track of all the car accidents involving Snapchat, and there have been several lately.
Distracted driving accidents happen much quicker than you would think. An article on distraction.gov points out that drivers who send and receive text messages take their eyes off of the road, on average, 4.6 seconds out of 6 seconds. At 55MPH, a vehicle will travel longer than the length of a football field while the driver is not looking at the road. Texting drivers are also 20 times more likely to get into an accident than non-distracted drivers.
Regardless of the app or distraction, if you’ve been in a car wreck by someone who wasn’t paying attention to the road, call us today.
