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Texting while Colliding with Police Car
By:
Deutschmann Personal Injury & Disability Law (Lawyers)
| Published 02/14/2016
A female driver in BC was driving and texting with her child in the car. She was clearly distracted on the Saturday night by her texting because she drove into a police car carrying a police dog. She was texting as she hit the police car, and as she hit the car she texted,
"I just got into an accident, OMG. I was trying to txt u. Ran into a cop car. OMGGG,"
Fortunately, no one was hurt in the car accident. The police immediately confiscated her phone and charged the woman with distracted driving and fined her $167 for using an electronic device while driving.
As an interesting note the police also posted a tweet with an image and the copy of the woman’s text in order to raise awareness of the problem of texting and driving. Under public pressure they were forced to remove the tweet. People felt that it shamed the driver rather generated useful discussion. They also felt that it invaded her privacy and presumption of innocence until proven guilty.
Distracted driving and particularly texting while driving has become a problem of epidemic proportion in Canada. Distracted driving is the cause of the majority of accidents in Canada. If you are on the phone texting you are 23x more likely to be in an accident than if you are focussing on the task at hand. Over 80% of fatalities on the road are tied to distraction as a contributing factor.
