Distracted driving ends the lives of thousands of people every year. The use of cell phones while driving in particular claims more lives than you want to count. EndDD, an organization dedicated to ending distracted driving, has a number of studies available on its site showing the dangers of distracted driving.
The National Safety Council claims in a 2011 study that around 25 percent of all automobile crashes involve cell phone use, but also admits that this number may be too low. Part of the research involved analyzing 180 crashes for cell usage. In this study, more than 50 percent of the drivers admitted to using a cell phone. However, less than 40 percent of those cases involving drivers who openly admitted to talking or texting at the time of the crash were officially noted as involving a cell phone in the police report.
Driving while talking or texting causes all kinds of careless actions like driving with one hand, taking your eyes off the road, and splitting attention between a conversation and driving, for example.
In personal injury cases involving car accidents, plaintiffs have succeeded in arguing that the driver who hit them bears the fault because they were using their phones at the time of the accident. On the flip side, plaintiffs have had their claims rejected because it was proven that they were talking or texting and driving. Employers have even sometimes been found legally liable for car accidents involving employees on work-related calls at the time. In some cases, people injured by the distracted employee will pursue the employer.
Currently 14 states have laws against talking on a handheld phone while driving, 38 states have banned all cell phone use for new drivers and 46 states have banned texting and driving.
