Automobile Accidents Caused by Distracted Drivers
Among the most alarming developments for the motoring public is the staggering increase in “distracted driving” and in particular the use of text messaging or email while driving. According to the federal government studies, text messaging doubled from 100 billion messages sent or received in the United States to nearly 200 billion over just a two year period, from June 2009 to June 2011. The raw numbers and the rate of growth are astounding. Along with other new-technology distractions—the use of GPS devices, watching streaming video, surfing the web on the smartphone, etc—and traditional distractions like eating, reading a map, and the like, these activities are giving drivers more and more to do besides watching the road.
And make no mistake: this activity is creating havoc on the highways. In 2010 the Federal Highways Administration attributed 3092 fatal car accidents involving a distracted driver, and reported that nearly twenty percent of all car accidents involved a distracted driver. The numbers are even worse for teens, which have by far the highest rate of texting and emailing while driving. Forty percent of all teens report that they have ridden in a car with a driver who has used his phone or portable electronic device in a way that endangered the car’s other occupants.
The risk posed by these activities is flat out scary, and the truth is that there is no way to know how many more car wrecks how many more injured people there are out there due to distracted drivers. Traywick & Traywick successfully handles cases of this kind, and is fully familiar with the investigative techniques that apply: subpoenas to cell phone providers to learn when calls and text messages were made, electronic discovery of the hard drive of smart phones and email service providers to ascertain when emails were sent and web pages loaded, even review of public and private security and surveillance video which might have captured the at fault driver texting or emailing.
When available, evidence like this creates very significant leverage for the injured person would you want to defend a case where the jury knows you were texting at the time of an accident? Neither do insurance companies. Call Traywick & Traywick today for your free consultation.