Kennesaw Car Accident Lawyer Explains Texting and Driving

Hi. I’m Roger Ghai and I wanted to talk today a little bit about an unusual case that involved texting and driving. The scenario was this: a girlfriend text her boyfriend who was in a different vehicle and he responded to the text. What happened was this: an accident ensued. It was a serious accident in which the other person actually had lost their legs in the accident. The injured party not only sued the person that received the text, but believe it or not, they sued the party who sent the text.
It was very interesting because the judge declined to impose responsibility or liability, we would say, in legal terms, on the person who actually sent the text. In fact, the judge ruled that there was no way that she could have known or should have known that the person that she sent the message to was actually driving at that time so the judge laid full responsibility of the driver who responded to the text on that driver’s lap.
In other words, 100% responsible because the driver was driving at the time and then made the choice to go ahead and respond and the tragic accident ensued. This case was notable too because this also involved teenagers. It’s not just teenagers nowadays who are texting and driving too much but it is a worldwide phenomenon. Texting and driving is a phenomenally dangerous issue worldwide. In fact in 2010, there were 6.1 trillion texts sent.
In the United States, there is a site which is called distraction.gov and it is a site relating to primarily texting and driving. It has some really sad statistics on the site as far as what happens most of the time when one party is texting the other. It’s always attributable, most of the time, the car accidents to texting and driving nowadays, one way or another. There is also a distraction, of course, of talking on the phone while driving too.
If you have any questions about texting and driving or you believe that the accident that you were involved in was because the other driver was texting at the time of the accident, please call my office at 770-792-1000.