Rear-End Accident, Likely Caused By Someone Who Was Texting and Driving, Sends 3 to the Hospital
Christmas Day was working out to be a wonderful day for a local family. After celebrating with family, a father, mother, and their daughter had plans to attend the Chiefs Christmas night game against the Oakland Raiders. However, their football game plans were wasted away after being rear-ended on Interstate 70. The collision happened about 6:15 pm on west-bound I-70 as the family was waiting to exit the highway at Blue Ridge Cutoff. The collision was caused by a single distracted driver who was believed to be manipulating his cell phone just prior to impact. The accident scene revealed no attempt by the distracted driver to brake or otherwise avoid the crash.
Although spared serious injury, the Christmas Day crash caused all of the occupants to suffer a sudden onset of injury to their neck and back. The injuries forced all 3 family members to the hospital for pre-cautionary x-rays. The injured adults continue to receive rehabilitation as of this report.
There is no doubt that texting and driving accidents in Kansas City are becoming more commonplace. Local drivers, addicted to their cell phones, are continuing to divert their eyes from the road to type out a text or manipulate a small cell phone key pad at a record pace. Traffic safety studies show that those types of distracted drivers (texting drivers) are 4 times more likely to cause a collision. Moreover, because drivers who are sending or responding to text messages usually make no attempt to brake or take action to avoid other vehicles, texting while driving accidents tend to involve more forceful impacts, causing a greater probability of head, neck, and back related injuries.
According to Texting and Driving Accidents Lawyer Doug Horn, texting while driving poses bigger risks on highways like I-70 where occasional traffic jams are more prone to catch drivers off guard. Horn says all drivers should be alerted to the new universe of risk on local Missouri and Kansas highways that accommodate large volumes of traffic.
Horn also feels that drivers that are texting while driving are just as dangerous as impaired drivers. This is based on his view that texting drivers are causing crashes that involve a severe force of impact. He also feels that because more adults are texting behind the wheel, the threat of a crash is growing quite substantially.
To minimize the risk of getting injured by someone who is texting and driving, Horn advises everyone to drive alert, buckled, cautious, and defensive.
