The U.S. National Safety Council recently released statistics which revealed that motor vehicle accident deaths increased by 5% in 2012. The same 5% spike has been seen in the percentage of accident victims who seek medical help after a motor vehicle accident. The cost of all these accidents and related injuries rang in at the tune of $276.6 billion last year.
At Intraligi Law Firm, we were curious as to the reasons behind these increases, which are the first in the last seven years. This led us to a recent study by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. According to the CDC, Americans are among the world’s most notorious users of cell phones while driving. Sixty-nine percent of survey responders indicated that they had talked on their cell phone while driving at least once in the last month, and 31 percent said they had texted or sent e-mails in that same time frame. As we can imagine, the problem is of even greater concern because these percentages are a lot higher among younger drivers, and we get the distinct feeling that unless something is done to change the texting/calling while driving culture, it will become more and more common.
Many distractions are listed which existed before the advent of modern technology such as eating, grooming or reading, but of particular importance seem to be the currently growing epidemic of distractions such as calling, texting, use of navigation, and use of mp3 players among others.
According to distraction.gov, you are 23 times more likely to crash if you are texting while driving. They say that sending or receiving a text takes a driver’s eyes off the road for 4.6 seconds, enough to blindly travel the distance of an entire football field at 55 miles per hour.
We car accident lawyers in Toronto are used to Ontario law which makes it illegal to use a cell phone for calls or texting while driving. We and our friends at Jurewitz Law Group Injury & Accident Lawyers both encourage all drivers to focus on the road and to avoid all types of distractions for your safety and the safety of others.
Mr. Intraligi is a personal injury lawyer in Toronto, and also offers consultations as an injury lawyer in Ottawa to all victims of car accidents, slip and falls, and all other type of personal injury related matters.
This blog post brought to you by Stephan Intraligi, Hon.B.A., J.D., Esq.
