Snapchat Sued For Facilitating 107 MPH Car Crash (patch.com)

An anonymous reader writes: A Georgia couple is suing Snapchat, a popular instant messaging and photo sharing app, after a car accident last year seriously injured the husband, leaving him permanently brain damaged. According to media reports, Wentworth Maynard, the victim, was driving in a 55-mile-per-hour zone when 18-year-old Christal McGee crashed into him traveling at 107 miles per hour. McGee, according to lawsuits, was attempting to use Snapchat's "speed filter" -- a feature that overlays the speed one is traveling on a picture. "Snapchat's speed filter facilitated McGee's excessive speeding," reads the lawsuit. "McGee was motivated to drive at an excessive speed in order to obtain recognition through Snapchat by the means of a Snapchat 'trophy.'"

Comments

Re:driving lockout when phone active

[Sydin]

Why limit it to just millennials? A 50 year old person texting behind the wheel is just as dangerous as a 16 year old texting behind the wheel, and you're lying through your teeth if you tell me you haven't seen idiots of all ages glued to their phones instead of the road while driving. Focusing in on stereotyping one generational group instead of actually trying to address the problem generally fails to get anything of merit accomplished.

grr

[fishscene]

Yet another case of holding people who have absolutely NOTHING to do with this situation asking to be held responsible for the actions of another. Why don't we hold the person responsible for this... responsible? And before you say "Why does snapchat even have this filter?". Ever heard of passengers? It's the same reason why locking out the phone while driving doesn't work (n-1) people in a vehicle/boat. I for one don't want a stupid world where people not responsible for a situation are responsible.

Re:grr

[Paco103]

The filter encouraged the driver to travel at 107 mph in a 55 zone. It doesn't matter who was holding the phone.

How do you figure? Let's accept the fact that there is a 100mph trophy, which appears to be in debate, but let's just accept it as true. Then snapchat encouraged users to go fast. Are there many legal and safe ways to go that fast? Yes. Plane, train, passenger on a racetrack (yes there are options for that), etc. It is not an achievement for going 107mph in a 55mph zone. It was not for going faster than the speed limit. It did not encourage illegal behavior. It encouraged, at best, behavior that is the users responsibility to determine a safe time and place to perform.

My fitbit encourages me to run. It does NOT encourage me to run into traffic. It does not encourage me to plow others out of my way so I can run on a crowded path. My scuba computer tracks my max depth, so is it encouraging me to dive deep? Sure, especially when combined with online dive logs. Is it encouraging me to go deeper than I know by my training to be safe for my training and equipment?

No. It is my responsibility as a human with a brain to determine when activities are acceptable. It wasn't a death toll counter or encouraging anything with no legal opportunity. It wasn't financially incentivizing illegal behavior (the equivalent argument to paying someone to punch someone else).

The driver is responsible for their actions. They drove a car at nearly twice the legal speed limit. That was their decision, and that responsibility is on them.

Re:grr

[ogdenk]

Before you say Medicare and Disability..... Medicare only covers about 80% and it usually takes at least a year to get disability and medicare and usually there's hearings and lawyers involved. He probably wouldn't get Medicaid either if his wife is working.

Meanwhile, he could lose his health insurance, house and car because he can't work.... and his wife may crack under the stress of trying to take care of someone with brain damage and the financial strain of covering him under her health insurance which her employer won't kick out extra for.

But we don't want socialized health care in this country cuz.... ya know.... freedom.... and it could never happen to *ME*.

Re:Frivolous lawsuit

[jklovanc]

1. On a train.
2. On a bus.
3. On an aircraft.
4. As a passenger in a car.

Re:Frivolous lawsuit

[kuzb]

It's time for people to start taking responsibility for their own actions. Reasoning like yours is fucking retarded beyond all reason or logic. It doesn't take a genius to figure out what he was doing was dangerous.

Everyone's missing the obvious...

[__aaclcg7560]

Neither the kid nor the kid's family have deep pockets. So the couple is suing Snapchat because it has deep pockets. Of course, the attorneys will milk every dime.

Re:driving lockout when phone active

[whoozwah]

the problem with this is that people commonly use their phones as a GPS.

Re:Why are they not suing the driver?

[Sydin]

Because they can get more money in damages from a tech company than they can from some idiot Georgia teen and her family. If the kid who crashed into them were a multi-millionaire, Snapchat's involvement would have never even been a talking point. They are making a fringe case of negligence that will be difficult to prove, simply because it's the option that offers the possibility of highest financial gain.

Driving 100mph

[Jason Levine]

Putting "using Snapchat" (or any other distraction) aside, I've heard of people seeing how fast their cars would go before. Back in college, a close friend of mine went 100mph on a straight, deserted road just to see what it was like. Even then, I told him that was idiotic. I've done 80mph on highways before and I could feel my control of the car slipping. At 85mph, I'd be much more prone to an accident. I couldn't even conceive of doing 100mph. I'm sure there might be some who could do 100mph safely, but this is a minority. Unfortunately, there are a lot more people who think they can do 100mph safely but can't.

Re:Frivolous lawsuit

[StikyPad]

It's not that the victim's mother (the plaintiff) doesn't want to hold the other driver responsible; it's that Snapchat has a shitload more money to go after, so if she can get a jury to agree that they were complicit, she can recover damages (money) from them. Few rational people probably believe on the surface that Snapchat is responsible for the reckless behavior of its users, but lawyers in courtrooms can be very convincing. That's how they put food on their tables, and Mercedes in their garages.

Re:Frivolous lawsuit

[in10se]

It only takes 2 seconds to travel the length of a football field while going 100mph. The car may not even have been in view when they started pulling out and then suddenly it smashed into them.