Smartphones Are Killing Americans, But Nobody's Counting
By Kyle Stock, Lance Lambert, and David Ingold
Amid a historic spike in U.S. traffic fatalities, federal data on the danger of distracted driving are getting worse.
Jennifer Smith doesn't like the term "accident." It implies too much chance and too little culpability.
A "crash" killed her mother in 2008, she insists, when her car was broadsided by another vehicle while on her way to pick up cat food. The other driver, a 20-year-old college student, ran a red light while talking on his mobile phone, a distraction that he immediately admitted and cited as the catalyst of the fatal event.