Friday, February 5, 2010

The National Safety Council recently announced new findings regarding cell phone use and driving. NSC states that every year at least 1.6 million car accidents are caused by cell phone use. This number was previously thought to be far less, or no more than 600,000 accidents caused by cell phones.
"We now know that at least 1.6 million crashes are caused by drivers using cell phones and texting," said Janet Froetscher, president & CEO of the National Safety Council. "We know that cell phone use is a very risky distraction and texting is even higher risk. We now know that cell phone use causes many more crashes than texting. The main reason is that millions more drivers use cell phones than text," she said. "That is why we need to address both texting and cell phone use on our roads."
The NSC advocates a total ban on cell phone use while driving. It says that its study was based in part on statistics from from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) and from peer-reviewed research that quantifies the risk of using a cell phone and texting while driving.
Although we at Gregg, Farris & Bumpers cannot state that 25% of the accident cases we handle are caused by cell phone use, we can state that we have noticed a measurable increase in the cases we handle where there is an allegation that the other driver was either talking on the cell phone or texting while driving.
If you’ve been seriously injured in an accident and believe the other driver was using a cell phone at the time, you should speak to an attorney. Usually the time is limited to collect and/or subpoena cell phone records to verify that the at-fault driver was using a cell phone. The fact of cell phone use is also a very important factor to use when attempting to settle the claim for maximum value. Gregg, Farris & Bumpers has had good success at using the fact of cell phone usage as an aggravating factor to achieve an excellent recovery for our clients.