Today the BBC commemorated the 114th anniversary of Great Britain’s first fatal car crash with a feature story on the accident that claimed the life of Bridget Driscoll.
The story, retold through the conflicting testimony offered at the inquest into Driscoll’s death, is fascinating. Apparently, the car, driven by Arthur Edsall, had a top speed of four miles an hour, due to a governor that limited the car’s top speed.
How did Bridget Driscoll fail to get out of the way of a car traveling at the snail’s pace of four miles an hour? According to one witness at the inquest, Driscoll, “bewildered” by the strange sight of an automobile, froze in place in the roadway. Other testimony seemed to suggest that Edsall, who had only a few weeks’ experience behind the wheel, did not how to steer and may have inadvertently steered into Driscoll.
Of course, new technologies continue to cause accidents. This week brought news that Dr. Frank Ryan, a famed Hollywood plastic surgeon, drove off a cliff in Malibu while trying to upload a picture of his dog to Twitter. Nowadays it seems we’re not so bewildered by the operation of a car; we’re more likely to get in trouble by thinking we can multitask while doing it.

This blog is maintained by the Boston car accident lawyers at The Law Office of Alan H. Crede.