Distracted driver’s final moments of life were spent on Facebook

Life is both short and fragile. These are two truths that everyone knows, but we rarely stop to appreciate what they mean. It often takes a story of tragedy to truly understand how the decisions we make each day could end our lives decades too soon.

This is the lesson contained in a particular distracted driving accident that killed a 32-year-old woman last month. Investigators believe the woman crashed her car just seconds after posting on Facebook about a song she liked.

The crash occurred on a highway in North Carolina. According to news sources, the woman’s distracting cellphone use caused her to veer across the median where she crashed head-on into an oncoming truck.

What was so important that she had to share it while driving? The Facebook post friends later saw was “The happy song makes me HAPPY!” This was presumably in reference to the Pharrell Williams song “Happy.” Investigators also discovered that the woman had recently been posting driving selfies, although it is unclear if this was during the same drive.

Would any of us participate in such frivolous and trivial activities if we knew they were going to be our last acts on this earth? The answer, of course, is no. Distracted drivers know in an abstract sense that the behavior is dangerous, but no one thinks the crash is going to happen to them. When it does, they may never have a chance to make that (or any) mistake ever again.

For the sake of those you love and the life you love, please do not drive distracted. The rewards are certainly not worth the risks.

Source: My Fox 8, “Woman posts about ‘Happy’ song on Facebook seconds before fatal Business 85 crash,” Lindsey Eaton, April 26, 2014