Driver distraction is a leading cause of car accidents and leads to countless fatalities and injuries every year. A driver can take their eyes off of the road for a second and in this short amount of time a grave mistake can take place. Car accidents are one of the top causes of injury and fatality in the country each year and there are millions of collisions that take place.
Of distracted driving cases, texting and driving is one of the most common with 10 percent of injury crashed being reported as a result of distraction in 2011. Since December of 2012, more than 171.3 billion text messages have been sent each month in the country, with many of these being sent from behind the wheel. While more efforts have been sought across the nation to prevent drivers from texting, there are still many accidents that result from a driver sending or receiving a message. On average, a driver takes their attention off the road for about 4.6 seconds – during this time a driver going 55 mph can travel the full length of a football field.
In 2011, there were 387,000 people injured and 3,331 killed in a vehicle collision involving a distracted driver. A large number of those involved in these cases are teens and young adults. Amongst individuals ages 15 to 19 that were involved in a fatal accident, 21 percent of the distracted drivers were focused on their cell phone. Texting can seem like a simple thing to do and a driver may feel that they are in control. Statistics show that this is a far bigger risk to take than many people realize, making them substantially more likely to be involved in an accident. If the other driver was distracted in your accident then you may be owed compensation. Call our Columbia, SC personal injury attorney to see if you have a case.