Personal Injury Law

Study Shows Dramatic Increase In Texting While Driving Fatalities

By Mark Siesel, Esq.

A September 23rd report from the American Journal of Public Health indicates that distracted driving fatalities have increased substantially between 2005 and 2008. The report uses data from the National Center for Statistics and Analysis's Fatality Analysis Reporting System, which revealed that fatal car crashes due to texting while driving increased 28% from 4,752 deaths in 2005 to 5,870 fatalities in 2008. This past January, the federal government banned bus and truck drivers from using handheld devices to send text messages on interstate highways.

According to Jennifer Smith, of the safety group FocusDriven, the more than 5,000 traffic fatalities annually from cell phone use is "equivalent to a major airliner going down each week in this country...if that was happening, they would ground all flights until they figured out what the problem was and they solved it." The deadly consequences of distracted driving was the main topic in a government summit the past week in Washington, D.C. Officials called for tougher enforcement against the use of handheld devices on the roadways to counteract the growing trend of fatalities due to distracted driving crashes.

Full post as published by New York Legal Blog on September 30, 2010 (boomark / email).