A woman who slammed into the back of a police cruiser while texting & driving hadn’t learned her lesson. At least not right away.
“I just git into an accident OMG. I was trying to txt u. Ran into a cop car. OMGGG,” read the next outgoing message from the woman in Victoria, British Columbia.
This immediately after running into the patrol car, which had an officer and a police dog inside. It gets worse: The woman had a child inside her vehicle.
The driver admitted to texting. Victoria police checked out the phone, issued the driver the $167 ticket and later posted the bizarre message on its social media.
And so began the great debate. Victoria police soon backed down, removing the tweet because “some of the replies began to resemble public shaming of the driver rather than meaningful discussion.” Imagine that.
Of course the privacy lobby checked in: “Presumption of innocence, right to counsel, privacy?” one Twitter user asked.
One commenter to the CBC’s report on the incident said: “That’s too bad, because public shaming is really indicated here. I think the police should not buckle to the texter crowd, and put this back up. People need to see this and think about this.”
The crash occurred Feb. 6 near downtown. The woman and her child slightly injured but OK.
Our hope was to raise public awareness of the dangers of texting while driving, not lead to ridicule of a person injured in a collision
— Victoria Police (@vicpdcanada) February 11, 2016
