The Last Text: Distracted to Death

You have a responsibility if you are calling or texting someone you know is driving. If you are sitting at home and decide to call or text a friend or a parent whom you know is driving a car, you have an obligation to first stop and think about what happens when they do read your text or answer your call.

In this video, a young woman has texted her sister whom she knows is driving when she sends the text—and the sister who is driving looks away from the road to read her text message.

Why She Feels Responsible for her Sister’s Death

The young woman in this video, though, feels responsible for her sister whose act of looking away from the road to read her text directly led to the accident that took her life.

Even if no court would find this young woman legally liable for her sister’s death, she has to live her life knowing that it was her text that was being read at the time of the fatal crash. With this knowledge, think before calling or sending a text to a friend or family member if you know they are driving.

This video is sad but the crash was entirely preventable. There is no reason why you should risk someone’s life by calling or sending them a text message while they are driving a car. It can always wait.

The young woman in this video distracted her sister by sending her a text. Every time we send a text or call someone whom we know is driving, we are potentially distracting them. We all know that getting a call or a text can be difficult to resist. There is no reason to give that person an excuse for not concentrating on their driving. No one wants to be the person whose call or text caused someone we deeply care about to crash and suffer a serious injury or worse.

The next time you start to call or text someone you know is driving, do the smart thing—hang up or stop texting before it’s too late.