Driver Texted 44 Times Prior To Hitting Cyclist

There are always those out there who do not want to follow the rules because they think that they know better. Case in point, this particular lady who hit a cyclist near Koroit, which is a small rural town in western Victoria, Australia. Apparently, the cyclist was on the edge of the road as the lady’s hit him from behind with her car, never mind that he had taken the necessary precautions such as having lights on the back as well as front of his bike. The poor cyclist suffered from a spinal fracture that required surgery as well as placement in a spinal cage, not to mention a broken big toe and lacerations to his head and body. In fact, he was also informed that he might end up as a paraplegic. Apparently, the 21 year old driver Kimberley Davis was discovered to use her phone to text 44 times as she drove before the accident happened.

It was the sending and receiving 22 text messages to seven different people that would most probably have led to such a situation, and even more galling is the fact that she did not want to help her victim, deciding to park 100 meters up the road instead while expressing disbelief that the victim called triple-O (the equivalent of 9-1-1 emergency services in Australia)

When questioned by the police shortly after the accident, she said, “I just don’t care because I’ve already been through a lot of bull***t and my car is like pretty expensive and now I have to fix it. I’m kind of p****d off that the cyclist has hit the side of my car. I don’t agree that people texting and driving could hit a cyclist. I wasn’t on my phone when I hit the cyclist.”

She ended up with a fine of $4,500 and lost her licence for nine months in the end. Do you think that the sentence meted out was just? I just find her thoughts on the situation rather surprising, especially when she considered how a human life is worth less than her car.

Edwin Kee
Categories: Cellphones
Tags: sms