For those of you who haven’t been following this, talking on a cell phone while driving is worse than driving drunk.
The scientist who first discovered that talking on a cell phone while driving substantially increases your risk of crashing got an interesting write-up in the New York Times.
We’ve written extensively, and early, about the dangers of driving while distracted, whether by talking on the phone, texting, or otherwise. But how do we use this information to protect the innocent?
When someone has been seriously injured, an injury with lifelong effects, there is often not enough insurance money to cover the necessary care. For example, a person who is paralyzed, or who becomes paraplegic in an accident may require millions of dollars of medical care over his or her lifetime. Many drivers in Oregon only have $25,000 of insurance. This is not even enough to cover a broken arm, let alone a lifetime of care.
One of our jobs is to get to the bottom of who is responsible. And if a serious injury has resulted, we hope that person or corporation has high insurance coverage too.
For example, in 2004 a Virginia lawyer killed a teenager late at night while using his cell phone for her law firm’s business. She never even saw the girl she killed. The firm itself was held responsible and settled.
In another example, International Paper Company settled a lawsuit for $5.2 million when one of their employees, driving over 70 m.p.h. while using her company-issued cell phone, rear-ended her, resulting in injuries severe enough to cause an amputation.
If someone is injured by a driver who is talking on his or her cell phone (or texting), one of the early questions to ask is, “Who were they talking to?”
If they were talking for work – and particularly if the person’s workplace encourages or requires them to talk while driving – then the workplace may be partly responsible for the Oregon cell phone car accident. And if the workplace has a million dollar insurance policy, then the person who was severely injured in that crash may be able to get the medical care he or she needs from that insurance policy.
It’s important to get to the bottom of things. To chase down the facts. Who was the cell-using driver talking to? Where did the drunk driver get served? Who loaned the car to the person with a suspended license who later crashed.
