As a Seattle personal injury attorney, I know how dangerous a car accident can be. You don’t know how many people you might hurt with just one bad decision (like drinking and driving.) Even if you are a safe and sober driver, you still need to use caution. Everyone else on the road might not have your consideration. One moment of distraction of your part matched with another impaired driver can equal disaster. This means following all traffic and safety laws, as well as refraining from using your phone while you are behind the wheel. No text is worth your life, the life of one of your passengers, or anyone else who might be out on the road with you.

It can be assumed that you are a safe driver—I mean, everyone wants to keep themselves and those they love safe. So when you engage in cautious and safe driving, it’s not to protect others from yourself (though it might be helpful if some drivers thought that way) it is actually to protect you from the small percentage of drivers who are dangerous enough to cause disaster. As a Seattle personal injury attorney, I know that it could have been much much worse for those involved in this accident, and if anyone else involved had been drinking or distracted by cell phones or passengers, it may have been fatal. You want to be able to react quickly enough to avoid the car hurtling at you the wrong way down the freeway, and the best way to make sure of that is to have 100% of your attention on the road.

I started the group Teen Against Distracted Driving, because as a Seattle personal injury attorney I often see how just a few minutes of distraction can lead to disaster and death. I wanted to drive the truth of distracted driving home for young drivers, in the hopes of formulating good driving habits for life. Employing a similar philosophy of “showing and not telling,” I use graphic videos as well as testimony from those who have lost loved ones to texting and driving. The Washington State Patrol has a vehicle destroyed in a distracted driving accident that is a startling representation of the destruction that can come from just one incident. Hopefully all these efforts result in safer roads for our children in the future.

Being a Seattle motorcycle accident attorney has taught me just how dangerous a crash like this can be. Without the protection of a vehicle around them, a motorcycle rider is much more likely to sustain a serious injury in an accident. That is why it is so important to be alert and undistracted when behind the wheel. The minute you take your attention off the road, you put yourself and everyone around you on the road at risk. There are lots of distractions available to us in modern vehicles, but the most common and maybe the most dangerous is the cell phone. Texting or talking, you are distracted from the business of driving when you are using it. Put down the phone while you drive, and you just might be saving a life.

As a Seattle auto accident attorney, I know that there are times when an accident is completely unavoidable. It is lucky that Rodney Santos had the attention and wherewithal to navigate the truck away from any real destruction. It is exactly this sort of incident that makes it so dangerous to allow distractions when you are behind the wheel. If an issue arises you want to be able to give it your full attention so you can avoid an injury to yourself or someone else.

Nevada recently approved a request to road test Google’s new “self-driving car,” which works using GPS, video cameras, sensors and lasers. Though a driver will still be present in the vehicle, all acceleration, braking and navigation will be taken care of by the car itself.  This leaves the driver free to text, talk, eat or do anything else that might be dangerously distracting in a standard vehicle. The question is: by removing the unpredictable and at times reckless human element from driving, has Google found the answer to the thousands of auto accident related deaths each year? Or will these intelligent vehicles introduce new problems, maybe more dangerous than the ones we have now? My work as a Seattle personal injury attorney as well as the founder of Teens Against Distracted Driving has shown me firsthand the destruction people can cause from behind the wheel of a car, so I am all in favor of technology to keep people safe.  Only time will tell if this will stop the distracted driving epidemic.

This is yet another example of how your bad decisions behind the wheel can affect others. It is really not news to anyone that driving drunk is dangerous. Yet people still insist on driving while impaired, sometimes with tragic results. It is lucky that no one else was hurt in this accident, but you can’t rely on luck if you are behind the wheel of a car. As a Seattle auto accident attorney, I often see how one mistake can destroy lives, so do your part to keep our roads safe. At the very least, if you are going to be out drinking, plan your safe ride home ahead of time so you are sure not to endanger anyone’s life, including your own.

While the particulars of this accident are not yet known, it is a clear reminder of just how devastating an auto accident can be. As a Seattle auto accident attorney, I have seen firsthand how a crash like this can tear a family apart. My condolences go out to the loved ones of those killed during this difficult time. It’s so important to understand that tragedies like this are often completely avoidable. It only takes one piece of bad luck to make that unsafe behavior that you might engage in every day turn deadly. Every time you speed, or text and drive, or do anything that divides your attention or impairs your ability to be a safe driver, you put yourself and everyone around you at risk. Don’t take the chance that you might seriously injure yourself or someone else, and be as safe as possible behind the wheel.

It’s not news to anyone that drunk driving is dangerous. With organizations like MADD devoted to raising awareness, and serious penalties for DUI offenders, everyone knows to take it seriously. The problem is, people don’t always implement this knowledge. Knowing something is dangerous and believing that you can actually be hurt (or hurt someone else) are two different things. Drivers tend to believe that they are invincible, or that they are skilled enough to get away with dangerous behavior. As a Seattle auto accident attorney, I can tell you that this is patently untrue. No one plans on getting into an accident, and every time you drive drunk you put yourself and others on the road at risk for serious injury or death.

It is lucky that no one was seriously injured in this crash, and it acts as a perfect example of why it is so dangerous to text while driving. No matter how good a driver you are, or how quickly you can text, when your attention is divided your likelihood of being in a crash goes up significantly. As this woman demonstrated, it only takes one look away for the road conditions to have changed. You rob yourself of the necessary time to react to these changes, and so are open to the possibility of serious injury or death. You really don’t know whose life you might be impacting. As a Seattle auto accident lawyer, I see firsthand how devastating these collisions can be. That’s why I started Teens Against Distracted Driving: to help our young people (the most at-risk group) become the ambassadors of safe driving to their parents and peers.  If the realities of distracted driving can be made clear early, who knows how many lives might be saved.