Just recently, the U.S. has already convicted the first driver charged of motor vehicle homicide by texting, and he’s just 18 years old.

Photo credit: Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic (CC BY 2.0). By mrJasonWeaver, used with permission. 

Aaron Deveau, 18, faces up to four years in prison. According to Yahoo News, Deveau was texting on Feb. 20, 2011, when his vehicle swerved to the oncoming lane and crashed head on into a truck, killing the driver of the truck, a 55-year-old father of three.

Deveau was charged with the following:

1. motor vehicle homicide
2. negligent operation of a motor vehicle
3. using a mobile phone while operating a motor vehicle
4. reading or sending an electronic message while driving
5. a marked lanes violation, and
6. two counts of negligent operation and injury from mobile phone use.

In Deveau’s testimony, he said he was not sending or reading a text message in the moments before the crash. He said he sent his last text message while parked in the parking lot of the grocery store where he worked and that his phone remained in the passenger’s seat until after the crash, when he called his parents.

However, phone records contradicted his statement — he sent a text message at 2:34 p.m., received a response at 2:35 p.m., and according to the police, the crash occurred at 2:36 p.m.

Texting while driving is a crime in Washington, D.C., and 38 states in the U.S.

Should the Philippines follow suit and declare a similar law? Maybe we should.

Photo credit: Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic (CC BY 2.0). By mrJasonWeaver 

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