If you or someone you love has been involved in a distracted driving accident, you do not have to navigate all the hassles of insurance companies alone.
Talk with a compassionate personal injury lawyer today so you can focus on your health and well-being.
Distracted Driving Among Teenagers
Georgia passed a “hands-free” law in July 2018. The law is clear about restricting almost all cellphone use while driving. Before 2018, the law banned only texting.
If you have not been up to date on this law or spoken with a personal injury lawyer, you may be unaware of the implications.
Most drivers are fully aware of the dangers of using a cell phone, texting, or searching on the web while driving. Just a moment of distracted driving can be enough to cause a collision, injury, or even death.
Since the start of the smartphone era in 2007, many states, including Georgia, have passed a hands-free law. In general, these laws prohibit motorists from holding and/or using smartphones and other digital devices while they are behind the wheel. However, these laws contain many exceptions, mostly for hands-free devices. Additionally, device distraction is only a small part of the distracted driver problem.
Many distracted drivers do not feel remorseful after they cause crashes, as if the device or behavior somehow excused their negligence. A Marietta personal injury attorney forces these tortfeasors (negligent drivers) to accept full responsibility for the wrecks they cause. This responsibility includes paying compensation for damages. In a perfect world, tortfeasors would do the right thing before a lawyer gets involved. Unfortunately, we don’t live in a perfect world.
Device Distraction
No one who has ever driven a car is a stranger to distracted driving. Pretty much every single driver out there has driven while distracted at some point. Making adjustments to you climate controls, fiddling with your sound system, even eating some fast-food take-out – it is all distracted driving. Because everyone does it, and almost everyone does so without any serious consequences, many people tend to downplay the risks associated with distracted driving. Just because you have not been harmed by distracted driving, though, just means it has not happened yet. You have probably never been hit by lightning, either, but deaths and injuries from distracted driving are far more common than being hit by lightning. If you are on the road, you are at risk.
More than 2,800 people died in the United States in 2018 in traffic accidents involving distracted drivers, and that number only reflects the number that we know about. Countless other accidents may have been caused by distracted driving but not reported as such. Another 400,000 people were injured in such accidents. Roughly 20% of those deaths were among people who were not even in a vehicle on the road – they were pedestrians, bicycle riders, or just close enough to a roadway to be killed in a traffic accident.
“Keep your eyes on the road,” is something every parent tells their teenager when teaching them how to drive. But paying attention to the road has become increasingly difficult in recent years with the advent of smartphone technology that makes it easy for people to text or chat with their friends while driving. “Distracted driving” is now considered a public safety problem on par with drunk driving.
More Than 3,000 Distracted Driving Deaths Every Year
The dangers of distracted driving are quite real. According to a recent New York Times article, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration found that 272 teenagers were killed throughout the country in 2015 in “distraction-affected” car accidents. Overall, 3,263 out of 3,477 crash-related deaths in 2015–94%–involved distracted driving.
Distracted driving is a leading cause of car accidents. This is why “texting while driving” is illegal in Georgia and many other states. State law expressly forbids anyone from operating a motor vehicle “while using a wireless telecommunications device to write, send, or read any text based communication, including but not limited to a text message, instant message, e-mail, or Internet data.”
Maynard v. McGee and Snapchat, Inc.
When distracted driving does lead to a car accident, the driver may face a personal injury lawsuit from the victims. A lawsuit recently filed in Spalding County, Georgia, raises the novel question of whether a social media company may also be liable for encouraging distracted driving by its users. The lawsuit, which is still in its early stages, has already sparked international media attention.
Marietta Injury Lawyer Blog