You knew this was coming. Someone’s driving a car. They’re talking on their cellphone, too. The car crashes. It crashes into another car. The driver of the other car dies. And now the family of the killed driver wants to sue someone. That “someone” just so happens to be the wireless provider and the manufacturer of the phone.
Linda Doyle, 61, died on September 3, 2008 as the result of injuries sustained in a car crash. Her car was hit by Christopher Hill, 20, who says he ran a red light because he was distracted by the ringing of his cellphone.
And now a lawsuit has been filed against Sprint and Samsung. Sprint, for providing the cellphone service, and Samsung, for creating the phone itself (the UpStage).
A similar suit was thrown out of court in 2003, when judges ruled that the car crash was caused by a distracted driver and not a cellphone. (Yes, it’s a bit like “guns don’t kill people.”)
What’s going to happen with the lawsuit in question? We can only guess. A lawyer chimed in with, “[The case] deals with the widespread use of a product we now know is involved in significant risk and deals with the ultimate question of who should contribute in minimizing the risk.”
To expand that a little further, yes, I should hope by now we all recognize that it’s extraordinarily dangerous to talk on the phone or text while driving; don’t do it. At the same time, there are plenty of dangerous activities that people engage in every day—driving in and of itself is pretty dangerous when you think about what’s going on—that don’t generate this type of lawsuit.
Once again, technology has evolved faster than our capacity to utilize it well.
Not sure I agree with suing the cellphone co’s when it’s the driver’s fault. the cellphone co’s don’t dictate when you are to use your phone. but that said, a Vancouver Canada-based startup called Aegis Mobility has the answer…go to http://www.aegismobility.com.
I agree! It’s the person’s fault not the company’s.
I don’t care if someone dies in car crash because they were distracted, I do if they hurt or kill someone else.
This is a perfect example of why humans never evolved because we are just plainly too stupid to have survived million of years!
Poor woman. The fault is with the driver. Maybe they shouldn’t have given a drivers license to someone dumb enough to buy an Upstage, arguably one of the dumbest phones ever.
+1 @modis mo
since the driver of the car is provided with the ability to turn off cell service if he/she may be distracted by an incoming call, the providers or the manufacturers cannot be held responsible.
This article speaks to the litigious nature of society in the USA. Don’t like something, Blame someone elses and Sue them.
What ever happened to personal accountability?
why stop at with a lawsuit against the operator. If you’re going to create a frivolous lawsuit, go all the way and cover all the bases,
Fle suit against the Car company, the State that maintains the road, the manufacturer of the glass that was may have been obscured by road debris, the manufacturer of the traffic light for not making it more visible, the state driving examiner who passed Mr Hill, the school that Mr Hill attended, the teacher… list could go on and on.
Ms. Smith is looking for solace and accountability for an accident and is hoping to secure financial gain in the process. If anyone is to blame, it is the 2o year old driver and his family for not having enough common sense to recognize that he was not paying attention to the road.
I agree that there is accountability here, but it is not the operator or the handset manufacturer.
I’m sorry for Ms Smith’s loss and hope that she will be able to get past the grief that the loss of a parent brings.
She should instead focus her energies on lobbying for change at a state of federal level to help change the laws that currently don’t punish drivers while driving distracted. This would be a better legacy for her mothers memory and a positive action to help effect change.
I agree with you to go all out. Lets not forget to sue the person who sold the phone and his mother for having him. I know that someone died here and technically its no laughing matter but come on suing is not going to bring back their child. Now of course if the carrier was at fault some how then sue till your name is on the store front. People like these are why carriers or any other industry have to pay their corp lawyers all that money which is paid by us through higher cell bills. Ok I think I went a little too far here but you know what when in rome..
Yes, it’s exactly like “guns don’t kill people”.
Inanimate objects don’t cause crime/accidents, nor do those objects force us to use them. The fault is with the negligent person alone.
that argument doesn’t stand because guns DO kill people, cell phones don’t kill people though. see, whether the person meant to or not, if they fire a gun into someone’s aorta, that person dies because of the direct effects of the gun’s mechanism of action. you can’t argue the same thing for a cell phone, unless the cell phone is used as a blunt object, in which case you’re still not using its designed mechanism of action.
Actually, guns *don’t* kill people. The fragments of the bullets fired from guns kill people. The gun is merely the propelling mechanism.
In the same way, cellphones *don’t* kill people, the impact of the cars smashing together kills people. The cellphone is merely the catalyst.
that’s an irrelevant distinction used to justify the mentality that guns are safe. you can’t divorce the gun from the ammunition because it wasn’t designed that way. the gun and ammunition were designed together, they are part of the same machine. I think someone like you might recognize this best as the mousetrap argument on behalf of intelligent design. google it if you’re still confused.
the point your lobotomized thought was trying to make, i think, is that the firing mechanism isn’t what kills people, the object fired is what kills people. again, the distinction is irrelevant, and only used to attempt to confuse and disorient a person away from the nature of the gun itself. your analogy to cellphones is incorrect because the car smashing into people isn’t part of the design mechanism of cellphones. Not is a catalyst in any way related to a firing mechanism. In fact, a catalyst is the exact opposite of a firing mechanism as catalysts lower the energy expenditure of the reaction, whereas a firing mechanism increased the energy expenditure. I would recommend an SAT course with Kaplan to better understand what analogies are and how they are used. *OK*?
9ooyan
Obviously if you own a gun the only thing anyone would do with it is shoot another human being, of course, that’s sound logic, by the same logic anyone who owns a cellphone will inevitably receive/make a call while driving so yes they are the same. Both REQUIRE a human, although in the case of a gun, intent is required. Please explain the difference If a person shoots you with a Glock 17 loaded with Federal Hydrashok 9mm rounds, stabs you with a 8 in Santoku food network knife, gets drunk behind the wheel of a car or runs over someone while on the cell phone. That’s right with the knife and gun someone had to intend to do something and fulfill and action, drunk or cellphone use driving only requires negligence on the individuals behalf. So the phone in a car is the one that is actually inherently dangerous, a gun is only dangerous with someone intending to use it for harm.
oh and from Webster:
2 : an agent that provokes or speeds significant change or action
@roach
for starters, your first ‘obvious’ statement, where is it coming from? although it’s true that the gun was specifically designed as a weapon of war (ie. kill humans) it is nonetheless a tool with multiple uses (mostly revolving around killing something, although recreational gun use obviously doesn’t require killing). And clearly, since in human history nobody has ever been accidentally killed by a gun or knife, you make a lot of sense. Now, all three mechanisms of killing can occur as a result of negligence. The point I was making, which clearly went totally over your head, is that the mechanism of action dictates the function of the machine (and all the components for that mechanism of action can be considered part of that machine). you can get killed by a chip of cement flying through the air from a car accident across the street if it lodges in the right part of your brain (this has happened to someone I know). How does that fit in your world view? Does that mean chips of cement are inherently dangerous? Are they more dangerous than guns? You should draw conclusions after you think, not before, it makes for more interesting conversation.
oh, and from Wiki:
Catalysis is the process in which the rate of a chemical reaction is either increased or decreased by means of a chemical substance known as a catalyst. (from any general chemistry 101 course, you would learn that a catalyst’s true function is to do nothing more than decrease the energy expenditure to drive the reaction).
Sigh.
My point was that guns have completely legal purposes that don’t involve killing people. For example, you can fire a gun at inanimate objects such as paper targets. You can put a gun on display, for aesthetical purposes. You could hoist a gun in your pocket because you think it looks cool/helps you get with teh ladies (however true that may be.)
Let me explain it this way: You can accidently shoot someone, and you can accidently kill someone using a car. On the other hand, you can, on purpose, ram someone, or run someone over, with a car. You can even do it over RC with *shock* a cellphone.
My point was that you were being pedantic, basically. In this case, negligence on the cellphone killed a person. The turn of events would have been different if the driver had been paying attention to the road. In other words, the PERSON here is at fault, and trying to abstract the action from the person by placing the blame on the manufacturer is rediculous. The same is true with guns, crossbows, arrows, trebuchets, pikes, slings and, well, arms throwing rocks.
On my skills at analogy: I was referring to the vernacular definition of “catalyst” (or, if you prefer, the literary jargon), which is an event or object that sets off a chain of events. I wasn’t referring to scientific jargon at all. So, yeah.
And BTW, I don’t even use or own a gun, wouldn’t if the laws were any more relaxed, and certainly don’t encourage their use, so take that misaimed vile and throw it somewhere else.
Sorry, that first paragragh was supposed to start off “Guns have…” (without the “My point was that” part, since that wasn’t really my point.) ^^;
all i can say is that we’ve gone off the deep end. my original comment referred to the stupid common saying, “guns don’t kill people.” having seen many people killed by guns, i can attest to the fact that indeed guns do kill people. your comment about it not being guns but bullets was…well i have nothing positive to say regarding that comment as you can read above. every comment i made related to that simple fact; which is the designed mechanism of action delineates the function of the tool. there are too many destructive perceptions of guns (pun intended) and your original comment only perpetuates them. after reading your last comment, however, i was left with the impression that you’re not as big a douche as i had originally gathered. so, keep up the good work, but try not to leave the impression that you’re a douche.
I just read an article about this and the daughter said something to the effect of if there had been more warnings about this it never would have happened. Riiiiight and neither would smoking, drinking and driving, war, or any number of things we are warned about.
So if someone goes out drinking and kills someone we would need to sue the bar for dispensing the drinks, the company that made the drinks the driver consumed, the delivery company that brought the drinks to the bar, the car manufacturer the driver was actually operating, the car dealership the vehicle was purchased from, the city where they were located because they provided the roads for said vehicle to drive on, and so forth. Exagerated? A bit. But this shows how people will blame ANYONE.
“You were driving in front of me and a rock was kicked up and cracked my windshield. Im going to sue you for the cost of the windshield repair, my hourly wages lost while having the windshield repaired and also the manufacturer of your tires because the produced a tire with too much road grip.” It’s becoming foolish.
I agree with you, but just Google ‘suing bar for drunk driver’ it’s not an extreme example it’s actually been done. :/ people suck.
Why don’t they sue every time someone sings along with the radio? C’mon, who can resist singing along with Wham!, right? I feel for this woman’s family, but they’re lashing out at the wrong people.
This is just plain stupid.
Re: Aegis Mobility comment, I’d check out ZoomSafer or DriveSafe.ly. Most people I know use ZoomSafer, but I’ve heard DriveSafe.ly isn’t bad either. Interesting idea to combat “distracted driving”
Of COURSE we shouldn’t sue them. But the state of the art is “sue anyone with a connection to your issue”, so we do.
Or similarly: we sue ladder manufacturers unless the top step specifically says “don’t step here” (umm . . . which makes it NOT the top step, eh?).
Sad, but predictable. No real results except that a lawyer or three with a class-action suit get rich. Moving on now . . .
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President & CEO
Answer Guy and Virtual VIP Computer Support, Business Change Coaching and Virtual Assistant Services
What an utterly ridiculous idea to sue the mobile phone companies for something which is 100% the driver’s fault. It shows how dangerous and oppressive this obsession with litigiousness is becoming. If this carries on, no person or company will be brave enough to do *anything* without fear of being sued for some wrongdoing they play an extremely tangential role in.
ABSOLUTELY!!!
And then we should go after McD’s, BK, Wendy’s, etc. for getting people distracted with their “food”, and Casey Kasem for distracting people with his radio show, and GM for distracting people with their danged climate control switches (it’s winter, it is SUPPOSED to feel like 28 degrees!), and Maybeline for selling makeup packs small enough to take in a car, and Trojan and Ramses for NOT selling enough condoms which leads to those danged distracting kids being born!
I feel for the woman’s family. Now, sue the sh*t out of the punk who let himself get distracted, and shut up. I hope the judge throws this one out of court so fast the bailiff can’t open the courtroom door fast enough for them to leave comfortably.
That would be akin to suing a pencil company over misspelled words.
As the author of the post puts it, technology really has evolved faster than has our capacity to use it wisely. Just because we have mobile phones does not mean we should actively use them all the time, especially not when mobile phone use is at the expense other more important tasks like focusing on the road.
Although Ms. Smith and her family have my sincere condolences, I don’t think that a lawsuit against wireless companies is the solution to the serious issue of distracted driving. Distracted driving is a behavior, and thus we as a society need to commit to breaking our bad habits. Individuals can discipline themselves by either turning the phone off or by using software like ZoomSafer, available for free at http://www.zoomsafer.com. It automatically locks your phone’s keypad and blocks incoming calls, so even if you forget you won’t suddenly be distracted. The more effort we make to prevent distracted driving in the first place, the safer our roads will be.
Yes, sure it’s right. Let’s sue the car maker as well, they provided the car after all. But don’t forget including in the suit the City or County for making the roads. And why not including the MVD who granted the driver his license. And the driver’s parents for bringing him to this world. And the person on the other line of the line, or receiving the text is as guilty as well. They might have a good chance going after the gas companies for propelling that car. And if employed, one should prosecute the employers for setting up a working schedule that will put the driver in the road at a given time.
Our society has been showing some dangerous hysterical behaviors.
this makes my head want to explode… should sue the gas station and petroleum company too for powering the car.
Absolutely right Andres, Its fault of the driver who is distracted not the cellphone. So why we sue the companies without any of their fault. Poor woman!God bless her and her family.
Crap and childish way approaching at the issue.
lot of power being given to technology and now it kills you because you cant handle it wisely.
The law does not impose on product sellers a duty to warn about risks that are obvious or commonly known. In most jurisdictions, it is illegal to talk on a hand-held mobile phone without a hands-free device. The responsibility for distracted driving lies with the negligent driver, not any product manufacturer. See http://www.consumerclassactionsmasstorts.com/2009/12/articles/new-suits/various-defenses-should-make-cell-phone-suit-untenable/
I’m Chris, the person who hit linda doyle. First of all i’m just clearing the “story” on top of the page. 1. I was talking on the cell phone and I made the call, I was not “distracted by the ringing of my cellphone.
2. I did not ever state that i ran a red light, for i didn’t ever even see the light, nor did i even know there was a light there.
dude, if this is a joke it’s in poor taste. and if you are actually the chris that killed that woman, that’s a fucked up post to leave. instead of trying to justify your actions to a bunch of strangers on the internet, why don’t you try and justify yourself to the family of that dead woman. either way, what a POS.
Regardless of its veracity this is is lamest post ever.
Smells like advocacy for the phone suit. What if the guy was reading Kindle?
Last line of post sums it up. So true.
Nowaday ppl can sue anyone, anything and even animal!!
sigh……Ppl so f**k up nowaday god bless them
im speechless
9ooyan..
anything can kill you so becareful :) just the Just and IF
“widespread use of a product we now know is involved in significant risk and deals with the ultimate question of who should contribute in minimizing the risk” I see some interesting parallels with cigarettes here… a hugely popular product… that is inherently dangerous in some ways. Maybe these lawsuits will lead to a warning on cell phone boxes hahaha
next, more lawsuits may force us to put warnings on fast food, running shoes, and anything else that could harm your health or “contribute” to you injuring yourself…. (sarcasm)