Norfolk Personal Injury Law Blog

Winter accidents are nothing new in east coast states such as Virginia. However, in the case of one teen driver who hit a snow bank and then drove into oncoming traffic, followed by an SUV slamming into the side of her car, law enforcement officials believed that distracted driving caused the accident. Police found her cell phone after the wreck after she had been taken to a medical facility where she eventually died.

Statistics that include driving and cell phone use are not routinely reported as a cause of car accidents according to the National Safety Council. The underreporting of distracted driving means that advocates who want to improve safety struggle when they try to support laws that will help save lives. In a review of 180 deaths in wrecks between 2009 and 2011, distracted driving was under documented, although all the accidents have strong evidence of cell phone use. In 2009, 2010 and 2011, it was noted in 8 percent, 35 percent and about 50 percent of the cases, respectively. In some of the cases, drivers even confessed to cell phone use during a wreck.

Virginia drivers are sometimes victims of truck collisions, but few have been the victims of an accident as bizarre as the one seen by California Highway Patrol officers in which the truck driver blamed zombies for the crash. The multiple truck accidents took place on a freeway in southern California and sent five people to area hospitals, two with serious injuries.

The truck was stolen at a checkpoint when the driver left a hitchhiker in his cab as he stepped out to fill out forms required by the police. The young rider quickly took over the wheel and raced off down the highway. Police later found that he was taking hallucinogenic drugs and believed zombies were chasing him and clinging to the back of the semi, which was filled with strawberries. 

According to a survey done by AT&T of over 1,000 adult cell phone users and 1,200 drivers between the ages of 15 and 19, 49 percent of adults admit to texting and driving while only 43 percent of teens say they do. This is in spite of the fact that 98 percent of those surveyed admit that doing so is dangerous. Drivers who are texting are 23 times more likely to end up in car accidents than those who don't, but individuals continue to text and drive anyway according to research done by the Virginia Tech Transportation Institute.

The problem only seems to be getting worse. Just three years ago, six out of every 10 people said that they did not text and drive. Today, nearly half of those surveyed said that it was habitual and not just an occasional slip-up. 

Authorities say charges are pending in connection with a single-car wreck that occurred earlier this week in Nelson County, Virginia. Officials say the crash resulted in all five people in the vehicle being taken to the hospital with injuries. Sadly, for a 5-year-old boy, the injuries were too significant. He died.

What likely has investigators most busy right now is trying to determine all the elements that resulted in this horrible tragedy. They know that an 18-year-old female was driving the car at the time the wreck occurred. Information regarding the other three people in the car wasn't readily available at the time this post was written.