A court in New Jersey has ruled that someone who texts a driver can be held liable if the driver gets into an accident while reading or responding to it. Here’s why I disagree with this ruling in principle:
The driver consciously makes a decision to take his/her eyes off the road to read/respond to a text message. He/she can easily ignore the text messages until they safely reach their destination. Speaking from personal experience, it’s very easy to ignore a text message or hand the phone to a passenger to read it and respond for you. I’ve done this before.
In the New Jersey case, a couple of teens were volleying text messages back and forth while one of them was driving; he crossed the center line and hit someone one a motorcycle in the other lane while he was distracted. The people on the bike received severe injuries, survived the accident and sued both texting teens. They settled with the driver and lost the case against the other teen.
There was an appeal, and the other teen was found liable, but not sentenced to punishment as she was unaware that her texting boyfriend was driving.
The driver is ultimately responsible. He caused a severe accident, two people lost their legs because of it and all because he couldn’t put his phone down. This was a stupid mistake that had life-changing consequences for his victims.
The judges were right to not sentence the other teen, though the knowledge that her text conversation had devastating results on two people will be with her the rest of her life.
No winners in this case, just sadness.
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