Regrets and well wishes from a distracted driver

One of the goals on our North Carolina law blog is to share stories that illustrate issues that impact your life. A safety issue often on the minds of those who drive Charlotte’s fast-moving streets and highways: distracted driving and the crashes, injuries and fatalities it causes.

We read recently of a Wisconsin man who is today filled with regrets. He regrets the Facebook post that seemed so important that he took his eyes off of the road and traffic as he drove a dump truck on an interstate highway.

“Life can change in that second that it takes you to look at your phone,” he says now. If he would have looked at the highway instead of his phone, it would have instantly become clear that traffic ahead had stopped.

When his eyes returned from Facebook to the road, it was just in time to see his truck smash into the back of the vehicle ahead of it so hard that the truck ran right up on top of the car. The truck and car, locked together, smashed into other vehicles before coming to a stop on the interstate’s median and erupting in flames.

The man trapped in the car crushed beneath the truck was just 29 and newly married. His wife found out the day after his fiery death that she was pregnant.

In the news article telling their stories, the dump truck driver says to the young widow, “If I could exchange my life for your loss I would.”

Two other motorists were seriously injured in the crashes caused by the distracted driver that day.

The truck driver drove that particular stretch of highway several times a day in his work. Normally traffic moved freely and quickly, but not that fateful day.

He says now, “I never thought there’d be a problem.”

No matter what regrets and well wishes a negligent driver might have for the victims of distracted driving, justice demands that those who are responsible for injuries and deaths be held accountable. An experienced North Carolina personal injury attorney can help you do just that.