Attorney Brandon Hewitt talked with WZZM in Grand Rapids about helping distracted driving victims and strategies for proving an at-fault driver was distracted
Michigan Auto Law attorney Brandon Hewitt recently talked to WZZM-13 TV in Grand Rapids about how our attorneys are helping distracted driving victims catch the distracted drivers who have injured them.
This was Brandon’s third appearance in WZZM’s ongoing series called “Just Drive,” the goal of which is to encourage drivers to put down their phones, steer clear of distractions, focus all their attention on the road and … just drive.
As Brandon explained, the problem of distracted driving has reached crisis levels:
“It’s scary. 39,000 to 40,000 crashes a year and the number one factor that we are seeing – and law enforcement around the country has seen – is that it’s distracted driving.”
Importantly, Brandon pointed out, the attorneys at Michigan Auto Law are confronting the crisis head-on by taking an aggressive, proactive and strategic approach to uncovering and proving that distracted driving contributed to car crashes that injured our clients.
The telltale signs and indicators that an at-fault driver was distracted include:
- Type of car crash, such as a rear-end collision with no evidence of braking.
- Statements from witnesses, including, but not limited to, the at-fault driver.
- Documents and data, such as 9-1-1 calls, cell phone records and “black box” data from the at-fault driver’s vehicle.
- Incriminating social media posts by the at-fault driver.
- Expert opinions about how a crash could’ve been avoided if the at-fault driver had acted responsibly and refrained from driving while texting and/or while distracted.
To learn more, please check out the video of Brandon’s most recent WZZM appearance below.
Brandon Hewitt tells WZZM about how our car accident lawyers go about catching the distracted drivers who hurt our clients
Brandon explained to WZZM that, in order to help victims of distracted driving-related car accidents, there are certain strategies our car accident lawyers pursue to be able to prove that the at-fault drivers who have injured our clients were texting and/or were distracted at the time of the crash.
Specifically, Brandon discussed the following strategies and telltale signs and indicators (not to mention irrefutable proof) that a texting and/or distracted driver was behind the wheel and responsible for a serious auto accident:
- Type of car crash: The “type of crash” “can be a really big indicator” of whether an at-fault driver was distracted or texting at the time of a crash. A “rear-end crash with no evidence of braking … usually … means that [a driver] had [his or her] head down the whole time … [I]t could be because [the driver was] texting … [It] shows that something was there to be seen and wasn’t seen …”
- Witness statements: “[O]f course you want to talk to the people involved so obviously we’re talking to our clients but we also want to talk to anybody who was at the scene other passengers … [W]e’re [also] going to talk to the involved driver and see what they have to say … a lot of times people are trying to protect themselves … [B]ut sometimes they will say you know when I looked up I was reaching for something …”
- Documents and data: “[A] lot of people think that it’s just a crash report that’s going to come along with a crash but it’s much more than that. We are going to obtain the 9-1-1 calls. We’re going to obtain diagrams, any measurements that were taken by the police. We’re also going to look into cell phone records and that will require a subpoena. Many times, we work with the actual carriers to see if we can get not just text information but data usage that will tell us … that phone was engaged at the time of the crash.” “[M]ost vehicles have black boxes that if we can get to them early enough we can download the data which is going to tell us speed, any braking that was done and some of the forces that were involved in the collision …”
- Social media: “[W]e’re going to look at what people are posting” on social media. “[W]e actually had a defendant once posting a selfie from her lap that said she was trying to stay awake …”
- Experts: We “have … access to a whole army of experts … who help [us] piece this together … [W]e’re going to look at human factors experts who are [going] tell us that, if somebody was texting they didn’t have the time to react. Accident reconstructionists [will] try to put all this data together so we can get a better image of what actually occurred … how this happened and why it could have been prevented …”
