Mother Distracted By Filming Her Child Hits 3 Teens In Crosswalk
We all get the “don’t text and drive” message drilled into our heads constantly. But the “texting” in that message actually encompasses a wide array of things you can be doing with your phone that can potentially distract you from the road. Do we need whole new safety campaigns that warn against playing games, watching videos, and attempting to take videos on your phone while driving? Maybe. One mother clearly needed to hear some kind of warning, as she was just indicted for plowing into three teens in a crosswalk while attempting to take a video of her toddler in the backseat while she was driving.
23-year-old Elizabeth Rachel Dove hit three teenage girls in a crosswalk on January 15. After recovering her cellphone, police were able to determine that she was taking video of her child in the backseat at the time of the accident. She was indicted on three counts of third-degree assault, five counts of reckless endangerment and one count of reckless driving. The teenagers sustained broken bones but no life-threatening injuries.
A parent would never even think of putting their child in a car without a carseat. But many parents engage in risky behavior behind the wheel by being distracted by their phones. This example may be extreme — someone actually turning around and videotaping their child in the backseat — but how many times have you noticed a driver in a neighboring car texting or looking at their phone while driving? I see this behavior all the time, even though it’s against the law.
In one study, almost half of all adults admitted to texting while driving. Who knows what Dove’s child was doing that was so cute, but it definitely wasn’t cute enough to warrant taking her eyes off the road to capture it. This is a case of obsessive documentation meeting really bad decision making.
Think about this the next time you see another viral video of a child in the backseat of a car. Have you ever stopped to question who was taking those videos and whether or not they were driving at the time?
(photo: Getty Images)
