Move over texting or talking on the phone while driving, Snapchat speed filters and trophies are here, and they’ve already to blame for one 107 mile per hour car crash, among others, according to the Verge. The most recent crash victim, Christal McGhee was using a Snapchat filter and she smacked into a minivan after speeding faster than 100 miles per hour.
Snapchat has no intention of removing or restricting the filter, and believes a warning mitigates the company’s responsibility, but a law firm disagrees.
Distracted Driving On Steroids
Snapchat filters let users do all sorts of things, such as adding interesting overlays to photos right before uploading them to the service. Snapchat’s speed filter is just another overlay used in teen escapades, but mixed with Snapchat’s trophy system, it creates an environment that encourages its users to not just track how fast they are driving, but to drive faster.
The Snapchat speed filter’s been implicated in at least eight crashes to date, and a number of deaths. Snapchat not only refuses to take responsibility for any car crash it’s caused, but refuses to disallow the filter, too.
Lucky To Be Alive
Sixteen-year-old Christal McGhee was trying to earn a Snapchat trophy with its speed filter and wound up speeding on a Georgia highway on September 10, 2015, according to the Verge.
McGhee crashed her father’s Mercedes C230 into an SUV at about 11:15 p.m. that evening after reportedly driving 113 miles per hour while watching the phone to see if she’d earned a trophy, and eventually crashed going 107 miles per hour.
The nasty little crash sent McGhee to the hospital, and to commemorate the event, she snapped a pic of herself all banged up to prove it, and Snapchatted the pic complete with a caption that said, “Lucky to be alive.” Lucky indeed.
Little did McGhee know, but at that very same moment, Wentworth Maynard, the person whose car she hit, was unconscious and fighting for his life. According to lawsuit documents, Maynard drove a Mitsubishi Outlander, and had his wife with him when the car crash happened.
Although Maynard is an Uber driver, he and his wife were lucky to not have a paid passenger with them as he was in the middle of a shift.
Maynard spent five weeks in the hospital, most which he spent in the Intensive Care Unit. Suffering from traumatic brain injury and rotator cuff injuries, among others, he is in chronic pain, is dependent on either a wheelchair or walker, and has trouble communicating, as memory loss and depression complicates his condition.
Worse, Maybard may never fully recover, or drive again according to documents from the law firm the couple hired, and the suit seeks that Snapchat be held responsible along with McGhee.
Blame For The Car Crash
Released during a 2013 app update, the Snapchat speed filter is supposedly only for use in non-dangerous situations. Tracking an airplane’s speed during the flight, or tracking a bullet train’s speed, for example.
Creating a filter that encourages users drive distracted, and then to drive drive faster and faster to earn rewards like trophies was bound create problems. Needless to say, the speed filter presents a uniquely dangerous situation that Snapchat refuses to acknowledge, or to remove.
The Snapchat Terms of Service states users should not use its services or filters, “For any purpose that is illegal or prohibited in these Terms.” Snapchat apparently believes this statement mitigates its responsibility, even though the filter practically requires its users to use their phones and its app while driving. Using the phone while driving is illegal in all 50 states.
With 70 percent of all drivers using their phones on the road in some capacity, and 9000 pictures snapped every second, it’s no wonder McGhee and millions of drivers like her use apps like Snapchat while they’re driving, and Snapchat should have seen this coming.
At very least, Snapchat should be held responsible for this and any future car crash that occurs as a result of its unsafe speeding app.
Snapchat Speed Filter being used while driving:
Featured image Screenshot Via Law Offices Of Michael Lawson Neff, P.C.
