In late October, a six-year-old Tennessee boy named John Paul Taylor was getting off his school bus when he was hit by a car. Although the bus was stopped, as were all of the other cars around it as the boy moved to cross the street, one car swerved around them all, hit John, and kept going. This hit-and-run crash could have seriously injured John. Luckily for John, his injuries were all minor, and he has been able to make a full recovery, but the outcome could easily have been much worse.
For that reason, police were particularly frustrated that they couldn’t at first identify the driver of the two-door sedan that witnesses say hit John.
Then their luck changed, and they found and cited 37-year-old Heather Williams, charging her with leaving the scene of an accident, passing a school bus, and texting behind the wheel. She says that she was texting when she hit John, which is why she didn’t even know that she’d hit anyone at the time of the accident and thus left the scene.
The Morristown, TN, police chief, Roger Overholt, said that this situation clearly proves the danger of texting while behind the wheel, and he and John’s mother, Jennifer Chess, are both urging drivers to think again before picking up their phones while driving. The next person who’s hit may not be as lucky as John.
If you or a loved one has been involved in a hit-and-run crash, consult with a skilled car accident lawyer in Chattanooga.
Gary Massey, Jr., is a well-known courtroom advocate practicing law in Chattanooga, Tennessee. Gary is a native of Tennessee who began practicing law in 1998. He graduated from Cumberland School of Law where he was ranked in the top 3% of his class and was an editor of the Cumberland Law Review.
