Milwaukee Personal Injury Law Blog

In a very tragic story that will make many Waukesha parents hug their son or daughter that much tighter this evening, a 16-year-old girl in Missouri was killed while she drove a car by herself for the very first time.

The 16-year-old girl was turning left to pick up some groceries for a family dinner when an 18-wheeler plowed into the driver's side of the vehicle. Police on the scene said the young girl did not yield to the large truck when she should have; and it is possible that her poor decision was made because she was texting while driving.

Just a decade ago, the mention of “distracted driving” likely would not have brought up immediate thoughts of a driver looking down at a cell phone, clicking away. As Waukesha residents know: how times change.

Nowadays, “distracted driving” and “texting while driving” are practically synonymous; even though that is not true. There are plenty of ways that a distracted driver can negligently cause a car accident, forcing an unsuspecting victim to needlessly suffer. They can daydream; they can talk to a friend in the car; they can be distracted by the radio, may it be the volume or trying to change the station.

Many Waukesha residents have noticed, motor vehicles are becoming more and more technologically advanced -- and in an era when cell phone use is rising, this presents a problem. Texting while driving is clearly a dangerous activity; but at the same time that countless distracted driving accidents occur (and countless officials decry the act of texting while driving), motor vehicles are getting GPS systems, dashboard computer screens, TVs and hands-free phone technology installed inside of them.

It is, at the very least, an interesting dichotomy. But, more than that, it is a dangerous precedent for auto makers to set. Placing all of this technology in a car can be too much for some drivers to handle. They may become absorbed by all of the bells and whistles, leading to more distracted driving accidents.

As states across the country - including Wisconsin - have passed a variety of laws banning different types of distracted driving, researchers have started to wonder: are all distracted driving bans created equal?

Recently, researchers from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee conducted a study to determine the effectiveness of texting bans across the U.S. The researchers compared information regarding fatalities caused by motor vehicle accidents between 2007 and 2010 and state laws regulating distracted driving. In particular, the study focused on texting while driving bans.