If you are like most Alabama residents, you continue to see people in their cars, trucks or other vehicles holding their smartphones up to their ears talking away while driving. As you know, this behavior is hugely dangerous and puts you and other innocent people at risk. Day in and day out, too many people in Alabama are involved in crashes caused by drivers who refuse to put away their phones while behind the wheel. Just how serious is distracted driving?
According to Distraction.gov, more than 430,000 people suffered injuries in accidents caused by distracted drivers in 2014 alone. That same year, more than 3,100 people lost their lives in these crashes. It seems safe to say in seeing these statistics that distracted driving is indeed a very serious problem. Of all types of distractions, texting is the most dangerous. This is because sending and receiving texts takes not just a driver’s eyes but also hands and mind off of the act of driving. Some distractions, like talking to a passenger may taken only a person’s thoughts away from driving leaving both eyes and hands available for concentrating on driving.
In Alabama, texting while driving is banned for all drivers. In addition, drivers who are 16 or 17 years old who have had their drivers’ licenses for less than half a year are also banned from any use of a cell phone while driving.
If you would like to learn more about how to seek compensation after an accident caused by a distracted driver, please feel free to visit the post-vehicle crash help page of our Alabama personal injury website.
