Suit blames Snapchat's speed tracker for high-speed auto accident
Snapchat logo, courtesy of Snapchat.
A Georgia man is blaming his auto accident on a teen driver and a Snapchat feature that tracks the speed of its users.
The suit (PDF) filed last week in Spalding County, Georgia, alleges the 18-year-old driver who caused the accident was speeding to get Snapchat recognition, report the Washington Post, the Daily Report (sub. req.) and CNN Money.
The suit targets Snapchat’s “speed filter,” which overlays a user’s speed with a photo or video.
The suit alleges that the teen was driving at about 107 miles per hour when her Mercedes collided with the Mitsubishi Outlander driven by Maynard Wentworth. The suit claims the teen was distracted and intended to post on the Snapchat app. Wentworth suffered permanent brain injuries.
A statement by the lawyer who filed the suit, Michael Lawson Neff, identified Wentworth as an Uber driver who was beginning his shift when the accident occurred. He was hospitalized in intensive care for five weeks. The teen was driving home from work at a restaurant with three co-workers in her father’s car, the statement says.
The teen took a photo of herself on a stretcher after the accident and posted it to Snapchat, the statement alleges. The caption was, “Lucky to Be Alive.”
Both the teen driver and Snapchat are named as defendants. The suit claims Snapchat knew that some drivers were involved in auto accidents while driving at high speed and using the app, yet it had not removed the speed filter. It also criticizes Snapchat for giving users “trophies” for using different features of the app, including various filters. “In this way, Snapchat has embedded more incentives into its interface,” Neff writes in his statement. “It’s become more of a game.”
A Snapchat spokesman told CNN Money and the Daily Report that the company couldn’t comment on the lawsuit, but the app includes a warning it shouldn’t be used while driving.
