Texting and Driving: The Dangers and a Documentary

Wednesday, September 11, 2013

Texting and Driving: The Dangers and a Documentary

Written by Malman Law, reviewed by Steve J. Malman.

In a new short film/documentary sponsored by AT&T, filmmaker Werner Herzog takes on the current epidemic of texting and driving. In the film, Herzog showcases several different people or groups of people whose lives were affected by texting and driving—and, perhaps most interestingly, he focuses on people from all angles, from victims of crashes caused by texting, to the families of those left incapacitated, to the texters themselves. The film exposes not only the dangers of texting, which we already know about, but the lifelong effects that the crashes and accidents can cause.

The Victims & Texters

The victims range from a young boy crossing a street to two Amish children, and families who lost their fathers. One woman’s family describes the ever-increasing medical bills they are facing, as someone they love was hit while walking down the street. Texters include a young woman who didn’t stop at all for a four-way stop sign so that she could finish her text of “I’m on my way,” to a man who hit a buggy when he was texting his wife that he loved her. While it would be simple to pass off these texts as unimportant, the real issue is that no text is important enough to put someone’s life at risk.

The Message

In all of the stories, the theme is the same—regret and remorse, as well as sorrow for the events that have occurred. The documentary is in no way a light one, and there are no happy endings to be found here. Instead, the doc stands as a PSA against texting while behind the wheel. Every day, people who do this run the risk of causing a serious accident, injuries, or even death. Personal injury attorneys and car accident lawyers will be quick to confirm that they have seen case after case caused by texting and driving—but this documentary is enough to scare anyone into putting the phone down.