When Georgia motorists see someone speeding on the highway, they could be witnessing a new form of thrill seeking. Safety advocates have accused the speed filter available on the social media platform Snapchat of promoting reckless behavior behind the wheel. Although the Snapchat application presents users with a warning not to drive while using it, incidents have been recorded of drivers exceeding the speed limit and then posting it on Snapchat.
According to a CBS News report, a 22-year-old male driver used Snapchat to make a 10-second video of his vehicle's acceleration. The speed filter recorded a rate of 82.6 mph that rose quickly to 115.6 mph. Nine minutes after the recording, the driver and his 19-year-old female passenger crossed a highway median and hit a minivan in a head-on collision. They died in addition to the mother and her two children in the minivan. Three other passengers were injured.
In another incident, an 18-year-old female might have been using the speed filter while driving her Mercedes at 113 mph. Snapchat insists that the woman was not using the application at the time of the crash. She did reportedly Snapchat the message "Lucky to be alive" after hitting another vehicle. A person in the other vehicle suffered traumatic brain injuries.
As these and countless other cases have shown, speeding drivers can cause car collisions that result in serious and sometimes fatal injuries to their passengers or to occupants of other vehicles that are involved in the crash. People who have been harmed in this manner may want to have legal assistance when seeking compensation for their losses.