Christal McGee, 18, is being sued for allegedly crashing her car while playing with Snapchat’s “speed” filter, leaving a passenger in another car severely injured with brain damage.
In the September 2015 crash, lawyers suing her have alleged that she continued to use Snapchat while she was taken to the hospital by paramedics.
She wrote that she was “lucky to be alive.”
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McGee and Snapchat are both being named in the lawsuit filed in Spalding County, Georgia, by Wentworth and Karen Maynard, CNN reported on Wednesday. Wentworth, the plaintiff, was merging onto a four-lane highway when his car was hit “so violently it shot across the left lane into the left embankment,” his lawyers said.
“McGee wanted to post an image of herself going fast. She argued that she was, ‘Just trying to get the car to 100 miles per hour to post it on Snapchat,’” the lawyers said.
She apparently hit 113 mph on the Snapchat filter, they said. When the cars collided, the speed was 107 mph, in a 55 mph speed zone. Wentworth suffered a severe traumatic brain injury.
The app awards a “trophy” to people who post pictures showing off their speed.
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The Snapchat filter “facilitated McGee’s excessive speeding” and it “distracted” her before the crash, the lawsuit said, according to the New York Daily News.
“We'll see to it that Christal McGee is held responsible, but we also want to see Snapchat held responsible,” T. Shane Peagler, an attorney for Maynard, said in a statement.
“This is a product liability case because Snapchat put something very dangerous in the marketplace without any warnings or safeguards, and basically said, whatever happens, happens.”
A spokesperson Snapchat told BuzzFeed News said the app discourages people from using the speed filter while driving.
“No Snap is more important than someone’s safety,” the spokesperson told the website. “We actively discourage our community from using the speed filter while driving, including by displaying a ‘Do NOT Snap and Drive’ warning message in the app itself.”
(H/T - Distractify)
