Texas motorcycle rider killed by driver reading text message

A motorcycle rider in Texas was killed in March by a driver of a car who was reading a text message immediately before the motorcycle accident.  The driver of the car was sentenced to 90 days in jail for criminally negligent homicide and leaving the a scene of an accident in connection with the wrongful death motorcycle accident.

We noted in our blog earlier this week that the author of the Hurt Report passed away recently.  He identified many of the causes of motorcycle accidents in his 1981 study.  One of the main causes was the failure of drivers to see motorcycle riders.  This results in car drivers failing to yield the right of way to motorcycles.  This commonly causes accidents due to drivers making left turns in front of motorcycles, entering intersections in front of motorcycles, or coming out of driveways in front of motorcycles.

If the Hurt study were performed today, I suspect that distracted driving would be an ever-more important cause of motorcycle accidents.  Just as in 1981, drivers are failing to see motorcycle riders and yield the right of way to them because of the failure to see them.  When drivers are taking their attention off the road to pay attention to cell phones, this problem can only be made worse.  This accident in Texas is just another example of this kind of fatal distracted driving accident.