Washington DC Injury Lawyer Blog
A powerful video excerpt (see below) showing the worst consequences that can arise when someone is texting while driving has become a viral hit on the Internet. The four-minute footage, shot in Wales, is intended to show teens why they shouldn’t text and drive at the same.
The footage has caught the attention of more than Welsh school kids and has been viewed online more than six million times. The video shows a teen driver texting while riding in a vehicle with two friends. Because she is engaging in distracted driving, her car moves into oncoming traffic.
What happens next is extremely disturbing to see. The footage shows harsh, close-up details, including one girl’s head crashing into a car window and a lifeless baby with eyes wide open sitting in one of the vehicles involved in the deadly multi-vehicle car accident.
Just how effective will this video prove at discouraging teenagers and adults from texting while driving? This remains to be seen. Some experts, however, believe that scary footage is not enough to promote real change.
Teens Who Text While Driving
By this time, most people are aware of the dangers that texting while driving can create—yet many people still engage in this type of distracted driving and most states have yet to enact laws banning texting while operating a motor vehicle. Fortunately, Washington DC does have a law banning texting while driving. However, that doesn’t necessarily mean that everyone abides by it. This can lead to deadly DC auto collisions.
Teenagers, easily distracted to begin with and lacking the experience of older drivers, do not need the additional distraction of texting while driving. Yet according to an AAA study published in 2007, 46% of teens say they text message while driving.
When you consider that commercial truckers, who are professional drivers, increase their crash risk by 23 times, why wouldn’t the crash risk increase significantly for inexperienced teen drivers?
Texting while driving, updating Facebook, Twittering, and surfing the Internet while driving are distracted forms of driving that can be grounds for a Washington DC injury lawsuit if people are injured or killed because a driver was distracted.
Doubts About Scare Tactics on Drivers Who Text, The New York Times, August 31, 2009
Related Web Resources:
Teen Driver Menace: Text-Messaging, Suite 101, October 22, 2007
Related Web Resources:
Teens Admit Text Messaging Most Distracting While Driving