Distracted Driving Accidents Rise with Increase in Private Taxi Use

One of the most important messages Fort Lauderdale Car Accident Lawyer Joseph Lipsky tells all drivers to avoid distracted driving, particularly not texting or checking email while driving. Surprisingly the rapid growth of cell phones to text and email is causing an additional unexpected rise in distracted driving in a group of drivers, those who work for private taxi services, like Uber. Those drivers actually lose money if they don’t use their phones to text while driving.

Anyone who’s used one of the recently popular private taxi companies knows that their drivers must quickly agree to accept a prospective rider’s request. Within their brief response time, the driver must determine where the pick-up is, which may only be done by looking at their phone. Drivers are penalized if they don’t respond to possible fares promptly. But private drivers are not alone, as many typical taxi companies have started using computers that match taxis and fares in a similar manner.

This technology driven rise in distracted driving has drawn the attention of the National Safety Council, whose chief executive bluntly stated that there is no debate that this is distracted driving. Incredibly, one of the companies responsible for the taxi based technology agrees that the required driver response may be considered as distracted driving.

As we are in the midst of the holiday season, Miami personal injury attorney Joseph Lipsky certainly encourages everyone to use a designated driver, rather than drunk driving, and while these private taxi type services are certainly convenient, for everyone’s safety we encourage our fellow Floridians to be a little more patient and allow a driver that is called or summoned a little more time to respond to a call for a pick up.