Attorney Sends Message About Accidents and Texting

Springfield, MOLet's say that little messaging gizmo you carry with you everywhere you go is buzzing like mad while you're driving your car. Or maybe you just have to send a text message immediately and there's no time to pull over to the side of the road. A moment's distraction can cost you dearly and Attorney Aaron Sachs sees the deadly consequences all the time. "The big issue right now is texting and accidents," says Sachs. "The risk associated with that kind of distraction is greater than the risk associated with someone who is over the legal alcohol limit."

His firm, Aaron Sachs & Associates, now has several cases in litigation that involve text messaging. "We are seeing more and more," Sachs says. "It seems over the last few years, there are more people checking their emails, reading text messages or sending text as they drive. They take their eyes off the road and their hands off the wheel and in one split second they cross over the line and have a head on collision or miss a stop sign. The impact of that is tremendous."

Many of those accidents involve young drivers. Whether the distraction is texting, the radio or other friends talking, statistically it is a dangerous situation. Sadly, Sachs says, "More young people are killed in car crashes in one year than all the men and women killed in Iraq since 2003."

Sachs established his firm in Springfield 17 years ago as a plaintiff only practice.
He might have become an evangelical minister like his grandfather and his mother and father before him. However, with his parents blessing and encouragement, he found his calling in the law. "I think everyone is called at some level, just because you are not in the ministry, doesn't mean you don't have a ministry," says Sachs.

His firm handles hundreds of personal injury claims every year related to traffic accidents, many of them involving teen drivers. "A teen is injured in a motor crash every 30 minutes," says attorney Sachs. "The risk doubles when a teen has a passenger—and the percentage of teens that have reported seeing other teens using cell phones while driving is 50 percent." Moved by the alarming statistics Sachs volunteers his time and accumulated knowledge at high school assemblies.

Sachs has produced a number of videos to use in his presentations to students. He often invites teens with real life experiences to tell their own stories. "Their experiences, whether it is a car crash or injuries in a car crash, or God forbid a fatality, strike home," says Sachs.

"I think some young people get it and some don't," Sachs says. "In one assembly some kids were laughing and some were in tears. The ones that are laughing are the future stories."

Aaron Sachs is a graduate of Missouri State University in Springfield, Missouri. He received his Juris Doctorate from the University of Missouri-Columbia School of Law. He is a member of the Association of Trial Attorneys of America, the Missouri Association of Trial Attorneys, the Missouri Bar Association and the Springfield Metropolitan Bar Association and the U.S. District Court.