Did Text Messaging Play Role In Car Crash That Killed 5 Youths?

A heart-breaking story out of Buffalo, New York suggests that text messaging while driving could have played a role in a car crash that killed 5 high school graduates.

As someone who drives an enormous amount (this site may not be updated much today since I will drive today a total of 6 hours round-trip from San Diego to Compton, near Los Angeles) the most dreaded person on the road is now the person with the cell phone. He/she comes in all ages now, from the brand, new driver to the older driver who’s going about 35 miles under the speed limit.

The cell phone driver listening to messages (or perhaps text messaging) can be seen at stop signs, parking lots, at busy intersections. Someone may be on the phone as they nearly back into your car at a parking lot. It’s less dreaded if you see someone just talking on a long highway drive that goes on for miles and miles but as you can see from this story it could be deadly anywhere:

Driver inexperience, a dangerous passing maneuver, speed and the possible distraction of a text message all contributed to the accident that killed five 2007 Fairport High School graduates, authorities said.

It has been established that Bailey Goodman was on a cell phone earlier as she drove to her family’s Keuka Lake cottage, but it is unknown if she was the one text messaging when the accident occurred the night of June 26, Ontario County authorities said Friday.

The brief exchange of text messages on Goodman’s phone occurred just before she lost control of her eastbound sport utility vehicle and swerved into the path of a westbound tractor-trailer.

So it can’t really be proven but it is highly suspected. There was no evidence of alcohol in the crash. No tickets were issued to the driver of the tractor-trailer or to the car that Goodman had passed.

But the whole story is a tragedy:

The facts collected by authorities paint a picture of five excited young women, who had graduated five days earlier from Fairport, the suburban Rochester school, and were headed for an overnight at the lake.

Goodman, at one point, chatted on her cell phone with another girlfriend who was in a car following the SUV. The girlfriend was with three other girlfriends, also headed to the cottage.

Then, in the Canandaigua area on Routes 5 and 20, with little more than a minute left before the horrible accident, Goodman’s phone was used to send a text message alerting a young man that they were near his residence.

“We can’t conclusively say who had possession of Bailey’s phone at that time,” said Matthew J. McDonald, a criminal investigator for the Ontario Sheriff’s Office. “The text message was to a guy, a boyfriend of one of their friends. The text message stated they were driving through the other person’s hometown and he responded back with ‘What are you doing?’ He didn’t know who he was text messaging.”

The message from Goodman’s phone was sent at 10:05:52. The last text message received on her phone was at 10:06:29.

The 911 call alerting authorities to the accident was received at 10:07:07. A passenger in the car Goodman passed placed that call.

Could that be the cause? No one will really know. But, yes, text messaging (even more so than just answering a cell phone in a car or checking messages) sounds like it could have played a deadly role.