Traffic accidents happen all the time, and phone usage is sometimes the cause. Rarely do the injured parties go after the makers of the phone or software for causing them to do stupid things, but one man is suing Snapchat after a crash last year that left him seriously injured. The driver of the other car it seems was using Snapchat’s speed filter, which encourages selfies while driving at high speeds.
If you don’t use Snapchat extensively, that probably sounds like something that can’t possibly be accurate. It is, though. There’s a mode in the app that uses your phone’s sensors to determine speed, then overlays that on the image. You can even get trophies for using the feature to show off your top speed. This is dumb, and when you mix that with youthful recklessness, it’s a recipe for disaster.
Such was the case last September when 18 year-old Christal McGee was driving down a Georgia highway. While driving, she decided to use Snapchat’s speed filter to take a photo of herself going over 100 mph. A passenger in the car says she saw McGee’s phone report 113mph at one point before the car collided with Wentworth Maynard’s car. Police estimate she was doing 107mph at the time.
Maynard was in a coma for weeks and has permanent brain damage from the crash, according to his lawyer. McGee was still coherent enough after the crash to post another Snapchat in the back of the ambulance (seriously). Police originally thought Maynard was at fault for pulling out in front of McGee, but that was before they realized how fast the teen was going, or that she was doing so at the urging of an app on her phone.
Maynard is seeking damages from McGee and Snapchat, which he alleges facilitated McGee’s speeding with the catastrophically stupid speed filter. The company has not responded to the lawsuit publicly yet.