Driving while texting is likely the single most dangerous decision someone could ever make. To put into perspective just how dangerous texting and driving is, let’s use the hypothetical of texting while on the freeway.
If a vehicle is traveling at 60 mph hour, it is traveling 88 feet per second, it takes about four seconds to send a normal text. Therefore, within four seconds a driver has traveled 352 feet (about the size of a football field) practically blindfolded.
What makes this fact even more terrifying is that commercial truckers also drive while distracted. This means semi trucks are currently traveling football-field-sized chunks of road at a time without looking up from their phones. When you consider how long it takes to stop an 18-wheeler that is moving at a high rate of speed as well as the impact a semi can make on an automobile, the cost of a brief text from a truck driver can be life-altering injuries and death.
If You Have Been Injured in a Truck Collision
Crashes involving large commercial trucks can be confusing, frustrating, and debilitating, but help is available from experienced personal injury lawyers. In these cases, trucking companies are liable for the damages a driver causes, but will try to settle quickly for as little as possible – often offering a settlement amount that may be too low to cover your all of your medical expenses and property damage, let alone your future long-term care expenses or pain and suffering. Failing that, the trucking company will often attempt to avoid liability altogether either by claiming that you – the victim – or some third party was actually responsible for the collision.
Truck accident claims require the help of experienced attorneys with the resources to investigate the facts. An experienced lawyer will be able to access the truck driver’s GPS system to determine the rate of speed he was traveling second by second and compare that with the data from his cell phone records to see when he was texting. Even if the truck driver attempts to delete his texts, his cell phone provider will have records of that data that can be used to prove your case.
The moral of this story is that you need to retain experienced truck accident attorneys with the resources to ensure a vigorous and thorough investigation as well as a track record of success in obtaining significant settlements and verdicts in truck accident lawsuits.
