Florida Cell Phone Accident Attorneys
Cell Phone Accidents
On any given day in 2008, more than 800,000 vehicles were driven by someone using a hand-held cell phone. You see them all the time, talking on the phone or texting at a stop sign.
The latest study by the AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety finds 53% of all drivers report that they talk or text while driving and the majority, 60%, use a hand-held phone, not hands-free.
You see the signs of cell phone activity on the road. The driver who just sits at a light that has turned green is one example. And when an officer sees someone weaving around traffic, the chances are just as likely that he is text messaging while driving as that he is drunk driving. The New England Journal of Medicine finds that drivers using cell phones, hand-held or hands-free, are four times more likely to be involved in a crash.
The Department of Transportation finds in 2008 that 6,000 people died in distracted-driving-related crashes and 500,000 were injured.
Often our office will see a rear-end crash where the brakes were not applied. With no effort to stop, the collision is full force and a car can accordion into a fraction of its length. The vehicle occupant is taken out in pieces while the accident investigator finds from cell phone records that he was busy texting not driving.
Other accidents in Florida have involved hitting of bicyclists, pedestrians or motorcycles by a texting driver. When the driver of a company car and texting, ran into a bicyclist killing him, the family of the victim filed a wrongful death action alleging misconduct and gross negligence.
In the case of texting in a company car, the company can be held liable if the worker is on the job.
Texting-while-driving wrongful death lawsuits are increasingly being heard, brought to light following a number of mass transit accidents when the train conductor was found to be texting while driving, injuring and killing his passengers.
In the case of a driver with a bad driving record who kills an innocent victim in an auto crash, texting while driving charges can be added to vehicular homicide charges.
In the case of teenagers, who grew up with cell phones, teens are well-advised to inform the driver they will not ride with them if they text while driving.
The word is getting out about the types of accidents that cell phones can cause, but unfortunately, it's been after the death and injuries of passengers riding in or being hit by drivers distracted by cell phones.