Pennsylvania Injury Law Report : Pennsylvania Personal Injury Lawyer & Attorney : Stuart Carpey Law Firm : Auto Accidents & Product Liability : Pennsylvania Injury Law Report

Anybody who reads my blog regularly knows how I feel about texting while driving. A while ago, I expressed my opinion based on personal experience in my blog post “The Importance Of Being Able to Text While Driving”.  There are now driving safety changes in the works, specifically concerning the usage of cell phones on the road.

Recently, the Pennsylvania House has passed a bill that aims to ban the use of cell phones and all hand held devices for drivers. If passed, the bill would impose a fine of $50 upon individuals who don’t use hands-free devices. The exception to this would be navigational systems (such as GPS) or calling 911 in the case of emergency. The goal is obviously to limit the talking and texting of drivers on the roads. Only 7 other states have such tough driving restrictions—California, New York, Washington, D.C., Connecticut, Oregon, Utah, and New Jersey.

Washington DC held a “Distracted Driving Summit” in September of 2009, where National Highway Traffic Safety Administrators reported 6,000 deaths and 500,000 injuries due to car crashes involving distracted drivers in the year 2008 alone. As you may expect, the majority of the distracted cell phone drivers are less then 20 years of age. The Pennsylvania bill’s lead sponsor and chairman of the Transportation Committee, Representative Joe Markosek said, regarding his reasons for sponsoring the bill, “We are all one text from eternity.”

An interesting take on this issue is from Michael Smerconish, a lawyer, Philadelphia radio show host on 1210 AM WPHT, and columnist for the Philadelphia Inquirer. His point is that business, i.e. the tech business, should be stepping up instead of government to make hand held devices, in his words, “well functioning, comfortable {and} aesthetic”, and safer when used while driving. Michael Smerconish’s article in the January 31, 2010 Philadelphia Inquirer entitled “Head Strong: Bring Tech Up to Speed” discusses improving hands-free technology as drivers are still going to be using hand helds dangerously while driving, no matter what the consequences. The government cannot stop our own stupidity. So the tech businesses should focus on manufacturing systems in cars, truck, etc, that protect us against ourselves, but still allow for the use of hand held phone devices. Better that these companies tackle America's obsession with driving while using cell phones, iPods, and other devices then have government step in at the local, state, or national level.

Maybe. But as a Philadelphia Accident Attorney, I see the tragic results of distracted driving on a daily basis and I hope the Pennsylvania Senate decides to follow the lead of the House (who voted 189-6) and approve the bill. More information on the Senate’s decision will follow.

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Unlikely. But Jennifer Smith, whose mother, Linda Doyle, was killed last year by another driver who was distracted because he was talking on his cell phone and ran a red light in Oklahoma City is testing the theory. The reason she can’t win the case is because Sprint-Nextel, whose cell phone service the defendant driver was using at the time, owed no direct duty to Jennifer Smith’s mother. The driver of the other car, 20 year old Christopher Hill, owed a duty Mrs. Doyle, to operate his vehicle in a prudent and reasonable manner. We all owe that duty to each other when we are driving on the road. When that duty is breached, it gives rise to a claim for negligence. Without the duty, there is no negligence.

What’s really going on here is that the negligent driver didn’t carry enough liability coverage on his auto insurance policy,  or failed to carry any coverage. As such, when Jennifer Hill made a claim to Hill’s auto insurance carrier for the death caused by Hill (ie: a personal injury case on behalf of the estate of Linda Doyle), assuming he had some coverage, the carrier probably paid their minimal policy limits. Jennifer Smith’s next step was to make an uninsured motorist claim (UM) through her mother’s auto insurance policy or underinsured motorist claim (UIM). That policy either didn’t carry any UM or UIM coverage, or carried a minimal amount.

The lawyer on behalf of Mrs. Doyle's estate and on behalf of Jennifer Smith  is clearly looking for another source of funds from which to compensate Ms. Smith for the death of her mother. It is an otherwise viable approach, but one that will ultimately fail.

I preach to consumers that they must maximize their UM and UIM coverage. The whole idea of any insurance investment is to use it as a tool to protect yourself and your family. If Linda Doyle had carried sufficient amounts of UM and UIM  coverage, Jennifer Smith and her lawyer would not have had to make a tenuous claim against Sprint-Nextel.

We’re talking about personal responsibility here. Tort cases, (that is, negligence cases), are frequently targeted for discouraging lack of individual responsibility - the theory being that if the courthouse is open to all sorts of legal wrongs, the party suing can look to others for his injury before accepting responsibility for his own actions.

But in reality, the tort law system encourages personal responsibility for wrongs committed in the community. For instance, enforcing negligence claims against drivers using cell phones and being too distracted to operate a vehicle safely is by definition enforcing personal responsibility, on the defendant driver. So too is encouraging consumers to purchase sufficient amounts of insurance coverage, particularly UM and UIM benefits, so that they and their families are financially protected against the careless acts of negligent drivers.
 

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