Horrifying footage from tragic texting and driving accident
In a heartbreaking video clip UK family members talk about the loss of a mother and three kids after a trucker who was texting and driving crashed into them.
The video includes the horrifying footage from inside the truck at the moment of impact.
According to LBC News UK, the driver (Thomasz Kroker) has been jailed for 10 years for the death of Tracy Houghton, her two sons and her stepdaughter.
The family’s car ended up underneath the back of the truck and was reduced to nearly a third of its size on impact, killing the family instantly.
Video via Youtube:
25% of road accidents caused by cellphone use in SA
South Africa has one of the highest road accident rates in the world and according to BusinessTech, around 25% of those accidents are caused by cellphone use while driving.
The International Transport Forum’s 2013 Road Safety Annual Report noted that South Africa experiences 32 accidents per 100, 000 people per year and that the cost of this tragedy is enormous.
It’s not exactly clear as to what the punishments are for phone use while driving in South Africa, although legislation does state that it is prohibited:
- No person shall drive a vehicle on a public road
- while holding a cellular or mobile telephone or any other communication device in one or both hands or with any other part of the body;
- while using or operating a cellular or mobile telephone or other communication device unless such cellular or mobile telephone or other communication device is affixed to the vehicle or is part of the fixture in the vehicle and remains so affixed while being used or operated, or is specially adapted or designed to be affixed to the person of the driver as headgear, and is so used, to enable such driver to use or operate such telephone or communication device without holding it in the manner contemplated in paragraph (a), and remains so affixed while being used or operated.
- Deleted
- For the purposes of this regulation
- the word “headgear” includes for the purposes of this regulation a device which is specially designed or adapted to allow the driver to use a cellular or mobile telephone or other communication device in such a manner that he or she does not hold it in one or both hands or with any other part of the body, and which is connected to the cellular or mobile telephone or other communication device concerned, directly or indirectly, while being fitted to or attached to one or both ears of the driver; and
- the phrases “cellular or mobile telephone or any other communication device” and “cellular or mobile telephone or other communication device”, excludes land mobile radio transmission and reception equipment operating in the frequency band 2 megahertz to 500 megahertz that is affixed to the vehicle or is part of the fixture in the vehicle.
Also read: Fines for using your phone while driving doubled in the UK