Sadly, two Ventura County residents lost their lives last week in a deadly crash at the intersection of Royal Avenue and Sinaloa Road in Simi Valley. Witnesses to the accident reported that a 17 year old girl was operating a Lincoln Navigator when she ran a red light crashing into a Honda Civic and fatally injuring both occupants of the Honda. Jessica Zarate, the 24 year old driver of the Civic and a college student, was pronounced dead at the scene. Her passenger, 22 year old Oliver Stokes was transported to a local hospital where he later died. Police are investigating ht possibility that the seventeen year old driver of the Navigator was talking on her cell phone at the time of the accident. Ventura County personal injury attorney Emery Ledger of Ledger & Associates says that this may be another example of how dangerous cell phone use is while driving.
Accident studies tell us that nearly 25% of all accidents can be attributed to the use of cell phones while driving, according to Ventura county personal injury lawyer Emery Ledger of Ledger & Associates. The number of people that continue to use handheld devices while driving is staggering. At any given time of the day, over 800,000 people on the road are also using a handheld device. That means that 800,000 people are driving while being distracted by a cell phone conversation. Driver distraction is, by far, the leading cause of accidents in the United States. Four out of every five car accidents are caused by some form of driver distraction. Despite the warnings and possible fatal consequences of driving while talking on a cell phone, almost three-fourths of all Americans admit that they continue to talk on the phone while driving. Recent statistics tell us that over 3,000 people each year loose their lives as a result of an accident that was caused, in whole or in part, by someone talking on a cell phone and another 300,000 people are injured. Although using a handheld device while driving in California is prohibited, drivers continue to do so and ignore the risks, says Venture county personal injury lawyer Emery Ledger.
While we do not know whether the fatalities last week in Ventura County were a result of the driver using her cell phone while driving, we do know that teenage drivers are particularly likely to be using a cell phone while driving. Teenagers have grown up in a culture where cell phone use is second nature to them. Using a cell phone may not be dangerous in and of itself, but using one while driving clearly is.
If you have been in a Venture county car accident and you think that the use of a cell phone or handheld device may have played a part in the accident, then you may be entitled to damages as a result of the other driver’s negligence. Consult with experienced Ventura county personal injury lawyer Emery Ledger of Ledger & Associates to find out whether you have a valid personal injury case. He can be reached online at www.ledgerlaw.com or at 1-800-300-0001.
