Car accidents are brutal in many aspects. They leave millions injured, and tens of thousands dead every year. But, they are unfailingly democratic. It does not matter how rich or how poor, if you are powerful or not very powerful at all, if you drive or ride in an automobile, you could be involved in a car accident.
Last month, someone whom many would consider powerful, the Pennsylvania Attorney General suffered a concussion when the state vehicle she was riding in struck another car. She is recovering at home, but doctors have forbidden her from traveling by automobile.
Her injury may be an exemplar of why one should always wear one’s seatbelt. There were conflicting reports as to whether the attorney general was wearing her seatbelt, but she was riding in the back seat of the SUV, while members of her security detail were in the front seats driving the vehicle.
According the Dunmore police accident report, it sounds as though the accident was caused by distracted driving, as the driver “lost sight” of the rain-slicked road, after his iPad fell off the seat.
It is unclear if he had been using it or if the motion of it falling was the distraction. Either way, he struck a parked car, and while not a severe collision, the impact was apparently enough to cause the Attorney General to strike her head inside the vehicle and suffer a concussion.
The damage to the vehicle was $964, which is fairly low as far a property damage claims go for a large SUV, which suggests the low severity of the crash, but reinforces the importance of always wearing a seatbelt, as even minor accidents can cause potentially dangerous injuries.
Philly.com, “Kane’s car crash derailed testimony a second time,” Craig R. McCoy and Angela Couloumbis, Inquirer Staff, November 9, 2014,