On a bright afternoon in 2017, our client was riding his bicycle on Route 52 in Amboy, Lee County, Illinois. The defendant was a 25-year-old male, using his cellphone behind the wheel of his vehicle.
The defendant looked down at his phone to read a text message and when he looked back up, he realized that the truck in front of him was slowing, but claimed he didn’t have enough time to stop. Instead of rear-ending the truck, he drove off the road onto the shoulder to his right, passed the truck and then tried to re-enter the roadway and continue south. At this point, he re-entered the roadway and struck our client who was also traveling southbound on his bicycle in front of the truck. The defendant crashed into the rear of our client’s bike, destroyed it and sent our client sprawling into the roadway where he suffered several nondisplaced fractures of his left shoulder.
Our client had to be airlifted to the hospital, where he eventually made a complete recovery. He turned to Hupy and Abraham and Attorney James Theisen, who settled the case for full policy limits of $100,000.
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration estimates that driver distraction in the few seconds before an accident is a factor in as many as 80 percent of all crashes, including bicycle accidents. It is estimated that each year, almost 6,000 people are killed and more than 500,000 people are injured by distracted drivers.
One of the major causes of distracted driving is texting while driving. Help Hupy and Abraham raise awareness of the dangers of distracted driving, including texting, by ordering a FREE “DNT TXT N DRIVE” sticker.
