Perhaps you or your kids heard about the horrific crash in North Dakota where two lives were destroyed. The case is making the national news now, because the driver is facing murder charges.
It all happened when a pretty 20-year-old woman was busy checking her Facebook page on her phone while she was driving. Maybe she didn’t notice she was speeding along at 85 mph while she was checking out her phone screen for Facebook photos.
Obviously, she didn’t see the car she rear-ended at high speed, where the 89-year-old woman who was innocently driving along was killed, having died at the scene.
Imagine the horror here. The young woman is now facing criminal homicide charges and will likely see jail time. She’s probably going to face civil claims too based upon wrongful death law. Her family is forever harmed.
And the accident victim’s family must deal with the loss of their loved one, family that includes 8 grandchildren and 17 great-grandchildren. They must hope that their beloved relative didn’t suffer in the crash, they must deal with the sudden shocking pain of loss that these crashes bring.
This accident didn’t happen in Indiana, but it could have. Far too many people here and in Illinois are on their smartphones while they’re driving, thinking that it’s not that dangerous and they’re good drivers, things will be okay. It’s a dangerous mistake and anyone doing this is risking a major crash — where they may survive with minor injuries while others perish, like today’s example.
Homicide Charges for Using Phone While Driving
In the above case, the state prosecutors have decided to pursue homicide charges against the 20 year old driver, after they got a warrant to review her phone records and learned she was surfing Facebook at the time of the crash. That, coupled with evidence of no skid marks at the scene of the accident, which means she didn’t brake before the crash because she didn’t see the grandmother’s car before she hit it.
All across the nation, the seriousness of using your phone while you are driving is becoming more obvious and authorities are becoming less tolerant. We can expect more prosecutors to file criminal charges in crashes involving distracting driving.
Criminal charges, however, will not provide financial help for those innocent victims of a distracted driving crash. Civil cases must be pursued for these victims under wrongful death and personal injury laws, and if necessary, lawsuits must be filed and aggressively fought for justice in these situations.
