Why Distracted Driving Is a Problem
The human mind has been repeatedly proven as a poor performer when it comes to multi-tasking. However, everyday drivers across the country try to drive a half-ton vehicle at high speeds while talking, dialing, texting, or doing something similar rather than just focusing on the road. As a result, distracted driving has become one of the primary causes of avoidable car accidents, sometimes with terrible and fatal results.
Your Focus Should Always Be on The Road
Drivers have enough distraction to worry about on the road versus adding to them trying to manage a digital device. Aside from basic road hazards that appear, such as animal crossings, drivers also need to deal with the unpredictability of other drivers, weather, natural disasters, personal issues, and sudden road changes. There simply isn’t enough brainpower for most people to competently do all the above and handle a completely unrelated, attention-grabbing task such as managing a phone call, email, or text as well, even though people think they can do otherwise.
Thousands Die Every Year from Distracted Driving
According to the National Highway Transportation Safety Agency or NHTSA, more than 1 out of every 10 fatal accidents now involved some type of driving distraction, killing over 3,000 people a year. That’s close to the same number of people who were killed in the 9/11 Twin Tower attack in 2001 for comparison. And the people killed are oftentimes not the driver; it’s usually another driver or even a third party passenger or pedestrian who becomes the unwitting victim.
The Evidence Is Digital
Technically, proving a distracted driver situation is not hard. Law enforcement can simply subpoena the records of the driver’s phone from their phone company to confirm whether the phone communication was active in the seconds leading up to the accident or whether any kind of email or text was being transmitted in the same time window. Phones themselves can also be used as evidence as well. So, trying to hide the matter after the fact through denial isn’t going to work well, and it could actually make a defendant look worse in front of a jury given that the penalties for distracted driving can be both civil as well as criminal prosecution, even with defense from a car accident law firm.
Don’t Become Another Statistic
Annually, 1.3 million people are injured every year from car accidents, but distracted driving is entirely preventable. Given the ramifications of being penalized, as well as the risk to oneself and others, no phone call, text, or email is worth that kind of trouble. If one really needs to communicate, pull over and stop. Then connect. The last thing anyone should be doing is learning how preventable distracted driving was the hard way after an accident has occurred.
However, if you do end up in the above situation, then you need an auto accident law firm on your side. Don’t try to go it alone or hope to talk your way out of the case. Get the best defense possible from an experienced car accident law firm. It’s critical for your freedom and your life going forward.