Texting and Distracted Driving Crashes in Austin, Texas — A Growing Epidemic

Everyone knows that texting while driving is dangerous, and yet drivers all over Austin do it every single day. A quick glance at a text message, a scroll through a notification, or a swipe on a dating app takes your eyes off the road for an average of five seconds, and at highway speed that is enough time to cover the length of a football field completely blind. Distracted driving has become the leading cause of preventable car wrecks in the United States, and Austin’s tech-savvy, constantly connected population is not immune to the epidemic. Shaw Cowart’s personal injury lawyers in Austin represent victims of distracted driving crashes across Travis County, and the firm has seen the devastating consequences that a few seconds of screen time can inflict on innocent people.

Texas passed a statewide texting-while-driving ban in 2017, and Austin has had its own hands-free ordinance for years, but enforcement remains a challenge and the crashes keep happening. Distracted driving car wrecks are reported on I-35, MoPac, Highway 183, and surface streets throughout the Austin area on a near-daily basis. According to the Texas Department of Transportation, distracted driving contributed to over 95,000 crashes statewide in a recent reporting year, resulting in thousands of serious injuries and hundreds of deaths. Those numbers almost certainly undercount the true scope of the problem because many distracted drivers do not admit to phone use after a wreck, and crash reports often do not capture distraction as a contributing factor. Shaw Cowart’s car wreck lawyers know how to prove that the other driver was distracted at the time of the crash, even when they deny it.

Proving distraction requires an investigation that goes beyond the police report. Cell phone records, app usage data, text message timestamps, and even social media activity logs can establish that a driver was actively using their device at the moment of the collision. Lawyers who take on car wreck cases in Austin have the resources to subpoena these records, work with digital forensics experts, and present compelling evidence that the at-fault driver’s decision to use their phone caused your injuries.

Distraction Goes Beyond Texting

While texting is the most talked-about form of distracted driving, it is far from the only one. Any activity that diverts a driver’s attention from the road qualifies as a distraction, and the categories are broader than most people realize. Visual distraction takes your eyes off the road. Manual distraction takes your hands off the wheel. Cognitive distraction takes your mind off the task of driving. Texting is so dangerous precisely because it involves all three at once.

Other common distractions that cause car wrecks in Austin include using GPS navigation apps, adjusting music or podcasts through a touchscreen infotainment system, eating or drinking while driving, talking to passengers, grooming in the rearview mirror, and reaching for objects in the back seat. Newer vehicles with large center-console touchscreens have actually made the problem worse by requiring drivers to take their eyes off the road and their hands off the wheel to perform functions that used to be handled by physical knobs and buttons.

How to Prove Distracted Driving Caused Your Wreck

The at-fault driver is unlikely to admit that they were on their phone when they hit you. Insurance companies will try to frame the wreck as a simple case of one driver failing to yield or stop in time, avoiding any mention of distraction. To overcome this, your legal team needs to move quickly to preserve electronic evidence before it can be deleted or overwritten.

Cell phone records from the carrier show the exact times of calls, texts, and data usage. Subpoenaing these records can establish whether the driver was actively communicating at the time of the crash. App usage data from the phone itself, which may require a forensic extraction, can reveal whether the driver was scrolling through social media, watching a video, or using a navigation app. Witness statements from other drivers or passengers who saw the at-fault driver looking at their phone provide powerful corroboration.

Dashboard camera footage from your vehicle or nearby cars, traffic camera footage from the intersection, and surveillance camera footage from businesses along the road can all capture visual evidence of the driver looking down at a device rather than watching the road. Your legal team should identify and preserve all potential sources of video evidence as quickly as possible after the wreck.

Injuries from Distracted Driving Crashes

Because distracted drivers often fail to brake or react at all before impact, the collisions they cause tend to be high-force events that produce severe injuries. A driver looking at a phone and rear-ending a stopped vehicle at full speed transfers enormous energy into the crash. T-bone collisions at intersections, where a distracted driver blows through a red light, strike the victim’s vehicle at its most vulnerable point.

Common injuries from distracted driving wrecks include traumatic brain injuries, whiplash, herniated discs, spinal cord damage, broken bones, internal bleeding, and in the worst cases, wrongful death. The severity of these injuries often exceeds what the vehicle damage alone would suggest, because the at-fault driver’s failure to brake means the full speed of the vehicle is delivered to the point of impact.

Holding Distracted Drivers Accountable

Texas law treats distracted driving as negligence, and victims can recover compensation for medical expenses, lost wages, pain and suffering, and loss of enjoyment of life. If the distracted driver’s conduct was particularly reckless — for example, watching a video or livestreaming while driving — punitive damages may also be available to punish the behavior and deter others.

Do not let the insurance company minimize what happened to you. A distracted driver who chose to stare at a screen instead of watching the road made a conscious decision that put your life in danger, and you deserve full compensation for the harm that decision caused. Contact experienced lawyers who handle these cases in Austin and let them fight for you while you focus on recovering. Texas gives you two years to file suit, but the electronic evidence that proves distraction can be lost if you do not act quickly.

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