You see it all the time in Laurel, Maryland and elsewhere, someone looking at their cell phone and not the road. Unsurprisingly improper and illegal cell phone usage is often a feature or suspected feature of a crash.
It has been illegal in Maryland for drivers to use handheld cell phones but the minimal penalty seems not to have deterred conduct outlawed more than ten years ago.
In legal car and truck injury litigation, both sides, plaintiff and defendant's lawyers, routinely seek to discover the other side's cell phone data for the general time around the crash. This is to suggest that the other driver was distracted at the time of the crash. Often this data isn't of any genuine use particularly because of the spread of automotive bluetooth technology.
Even use of Bluetooth contemplates a certain level of distraction.
The bottom line is that being safe contemplates driving defensively, which is impossible to do if your attention is on texting rather than driving.
