Personal Injury Law : Cell phones and driving don't mix
Cell phones and driving don't mix, and the research is there to prove it! The New England Journal of Medicine and the British Medical Journal recently completed studies that confirm the that driving while on the phone drastically increases the risk of getting into a serious or fatal accident. In fact, drivers who use cell phones have a slower reaction time on the road than a drunk driver! This data is a rude awakening for all of us that conduct business, talk to family and friends, or check email on our phones from behind the wheel of a moving car. This danger is also only going to rise, as cell phone users rose to almost 276 million in 2009.
Take for instance the story of an investment broker who was on his phone in New York when he drove through a red light, striking a young man on a motorcycle and killing him. In 2004, an attorney was on the phone when she hit and killed a teenage girl. The law firm the lawyer worked for eventually paid a settlement and the attorney was disbarred. These two careless drivers aren't necessarily 'bad people' but they did make a conscious decision to risk life and limb to talk on the phone. Is there ANY phone call that is THAT important? We don't think so. And rest assured, our personal injury lawyers request cell phone records in each and every car accident case to verify who was on their phone at the time of the crash. We even request our own client's cell phone records to make sure they were not on the phone at the time of the crash and thus partially to blame.
In situations where we discover that the other driver was using a cell phone at the time of the crash, our lawyers are taking it one step further to determine whether that phone call was anything "work-related." If we determine that the call was work related, our lawsuit will also include the employer of the negligent driver who caused the crash. In a claim against the employer, our lawyers will prevail if we can prove:
Take for instance the story of an investment broker who was on his phone in New York when he drove through a red light, striking a young man on a motorcycle and killing him. In 2004, an attorney was on the phone when she hit and killed a teenage girl. The law firm the lawyer worked for eventually paid a settlement and the attorney was disbarred. These two careless drivers aren't necessarily 'bad people' but they did make a conscious decision to risk life and limb to talk on the phone. Is there ANY phone call that is THAT important? We don't think so. And rest assured, our personal injury lawyers request cell phone records in each and every car accident case to verify who was on their phone at the time of the crash. We even request our own client's cell phone records to make sure they were not on the phone at the time of the crash and thus partially to blame.
In situations where we discover that the other driver was using a cell phone at the time of the crash, our lawyers are taking it one step further to determine whether that phone call was anything "work-related." If we determine that the call was work related, our lawsuit will also include the employer of the negligent driver who caused the crash. In a claim against the employer, our lawyers will prevail if we can prove:
- The driver was in the 'course and scope' of his/her employment at the time of the crash; and
- The employer did not have a policy against using cell phones while driving a car; and
- The use of the cell phone contributed to the cause of the crash.
