Pennsylvania high school takes action against distracted driving

Distracted driving can take on many different forms. A driver can be defined as distracted if they are eating while driving, doing their makeup, changing the station on the radio or even just talking to another person in the car with them. However, one of the most dangerous distracted driving activities is texting and driving.

The dangers of texting and driving

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, texting and driving is the most dangerous activity for a driver to engage in because it combines all three forms of distraction. These three forms of distraction are:

• Visual-which involves the driver taking their eyes off the road.
• Manual-which occurs when the driver takes their hands off the steering wheel.
• Cognitive-which happens when the driver’s sole focus is no longer on driving.

When a driver sends or receives a text, they take their eyes off the road for approximately 4.6 seconds, which is the equivalent of driving the length of a football field at 55 miles per hour, says distraction.gov.
In order to combat the dangers that texting and driving poses to individuals in Pennsylvania, the governor of the state enacted a law in March of 2012 that makes texting and driving a primary offense, says the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. This means that a driver can get pulled over for no other reason but texting while operating a vehicle.

Pennsylvania teens know the law

Although it is against the law to text and drive in Pennsylvania, a recent study conducted by AAA found that the number of people that believed that texting while driving was a dangerous activity declined from 87 percent in 2009 to 81 percent in 2012 and the number of drivers that texted and drove simultaneously also increased over the same three year period.

With texting and driving is on the rise, a Pennsylvania high school is doing their part to minimize the dangers of distracted driving out on the roadways. Recently, a combined effort by the school and the school’s chapter of Students Against Destructive Driving Decisions put on its annual ‘mock crash’ for junior students at the school. Right before prom, participants soaked themselves in fake blood and emergency responder vehicles arrived at the scene in order to illustrate to the teens what the effects of texting and driving are like.

Unfortunately, despite the efforts of the SADD chapter at this Pennsylvania high school and those around the country, many people are still injured and killed in accidents involving a distracted driver every day. According to the CDC, more than nine people are killed on a daily basis in an accident with a distracted driver. If you were injured in an accident with another driver that was texting or engaging in another form of distraction, contact an attorney in your area that can help you recover your rights to proper compensation.

Attorney Cliff Rieders

Cliff Rieders is a Nationally Board Certified Trial Lawyer practicing personal injury law. A large part of his practice involves multi-district litigation, including cases related to pharmaceuticals, vitamin supplements and medical devices. He is admitted in several state and federal courts, as well as the Supreme Court of the United States. Rieders is the past regional president of the Federal Bar Association and is a life member of the distinguished American Law Institute, which promulgates proposed rules adopted by many state courts. He is a past president of the Pennsylvania Association for Justice, formerly Pennsylvania Trial Lawyers Association. As a founder of the Pennsylvania Patient Safety Authority, he served on the Board for 15 years.

Not only has Rieders held many highly esteemed, leadership positions, he authored legislation related to the Patient Safety Authority and the Mcare Act, which governs medical and hospital liability actions in Pennsylvania. He authored texts upon which both practitioners and judges rely, including Pennsylvania Malpractice Laws and Forms, and Financial Responsibility Law Issues in Pennsylvania, the latter governing auto and truck collisions in Pennsylvania. In addition, he wrote several books on the practice of law in Pennsylvania regarding wrongful death and survivor actions, insurance bad faith, legal malpractice claims and worker rights, among others. Rieders also serves as a resource to practitioners as a regular speaker for Celesq, an arm of the world’s largest legal publisher, Thomson Reuters West Publishing.

As recognition of his wide range of contribution to his profession and of his dedication to protecting the rights of his clients, he received numerous awards, among them the George F. Douglas Amicus Curiae Award, the Milton D. Rosenberg Award, the B’nai B’rith Justice Award, and awards of recognition from the Pennsylvania Trial Lawyers. [ Attorney Bio ]