Myriamdel Socorro Lopez was with her husband as they drove down Bird Road in Miami. Myriam was the front passenger when 17 year old Luis Cruz-Govin, who was speeding and weaving in and out of traffic in his father’s car, crashed into their car, as reported in the Miami Herald. Myriam died on the scene. Her husband, Wilson Torres, sustained internal injuries, abdominal bleeding and a large cut from his chest to his stomach from the impact. Myriam and Wilson had two children who were luckily not in the car at the time of the fatal crash.
The police at the scene charged Cruz-Govin with speeding and reckless driving, but not vehicular homicide. He was given a $2,000 fine, and his license was suspended for six months. In addition, he had to complete a court ordered advanced driving course, as reported in the Miami Herald. The evidence showed Cruz-Govin was driving between 61 and 69 miles per hour in a 40 mph zone. Records showed an outgoing text at 8:19 p.m. from Cruz-Govin’s phone. A Professor of psychology at the University of Utah testified at the trial on the effects of texting and driving.
A Miami-Dade County jury awarded $8.8 million to the family of Myriamdel Socorro Lopez who was killed in this accident a teenage driver – believed to be texting.
The National Transportation Safety Board recently recommended that the Federal Government ban the use of all cell phone and texting devices during driving. Texting while driving is a serious problem in the United States. Some research indicates that texting while driving makes a driver up to eight times more likely to get in an accident. The NHTSA reports that in 2008, 5,870 people lost their lives and an estimated 515,000 people were injured due to one or more distracted drivers.
As a Miami personal injury attorney and a Fort Lauderdale wrongful death attorney, I have represented many clients that have sustained incapacitating injuries, or the families of those who unfortunately lost their lives, when another driver was texting and not paying attention to traffic conditions. At Law Offices of Wolf & Pravato, P.A., our Fort Lauderdale car accident attorney team uses the best reconstruction experts and the top accident and defect engineers to truly understand the biomechanics of the accident, and to seek out the evidence that others may overlook.
After a Florida Auto Accident, our Compensation Lawyer Team can Help.
If you have been involved in a Fort Lauderdale-area car accident, contact us immediately. We will answer all of your questions, explain your rights and help you to achieve justice; justice is not automatic, we will fight for you. Wolf and Pravato are based in Fort Lauderdale, but are here to help victims and their families from Miami to Ft. Myers.
