Another fatal North Carolina distracted driving crash

There was anger and frustration in the voice of the truck driver’s boss. The supervisor had just lost a friend and a co-worker in a North Carolina truck accident near the Bladen County line about three hours southeast of Charlotte.

A TV news report said the death of 45-year-old Timothy Williams left his family without a father. The trucker was killed when he swerved his 18-wheeler in order to avoid a car that had pulled out in front of his rig. The truck weighing nearly 100,000 pounds went off the road and smashed into a tree.

Williams was pronounced dead at the scene.

“It’s just tragic,” said his’ boss at a Wilmington trucking company. As the supervisor stood near a memorial for Williams, he gestured towards photos of the trucker and his young daughter. “You need to take a hard look at this little girl and her dad,” he said. “If you are texting and driving, do you want to be the person responsible for hurting someone like that?”

Though the brief TV news report did not quote law enforcement officials blaming the crash on distracted driving, the supervisor clearly believes the driver of the car was paying attention to a phone and not the traffic.

“We just have got to get off the phones and drive and be polite to one another,” he pleaded.

He makes a good point. The human wreckage caused by distracted driving is heartbreaking. Two years ago, 3,477 people across the U.S. were killed in crashes caused by distracted drier and another 391,000 were injured.

One of the ways injury victims and families who have lost loved ones can fight back is with personal injury and wrongful death litigation. A lawsuit holds the distracted driver accountable for their negligence and helps deliver an unambiguous message that this unacceptable behavior will be punished.