(Newswire.net — April 29, 2016) — A Snapchat app user caused a car accident in September 2015. 18-years-old Christal McGee was driving her father’s Mercedes when she hit the Uber driver at 107 miles per hour. The plaintiff is now suing Snapchat along with the car driver who was testing her speed on the app, the Washington Post reported.
In September 2015, McGee was doing 113 miles on a suburban road outside Atlanta where the speed limit is 55. She was testing a new Snapchat app that measures the speed when she slammed into the Uber vehicle at 107 miles per hour.
Uber driver Maynard Wentworth suffered multiple head injuries and was hospitalized for six months. After Wentworth recovered, he filed a lawsuit against McGee. However, he also considered Snapchat responsible and is suing the company for negligence.
A civil complaint filed in Spalding County court last week alleges that Snapchat was equally responsible for the cause of the crash as the company did not delete the miles per hour filter from the app after it was cited in similar accidents prior to the September 2015 crash, the Washington Post reported.
According to the report, McGee was driving several of her friends, one of which was pregnant, home from work at a local restaurant in Hampton, Ga. The police report cited the pregnant passenger as she testified that McGee started to drive faster and faster trying to post while driving 100 mph. According to the report, the passengers saw Snapchat record 113 mph when McGee was just about to post it.
She crashed into Wentworth’s Mitsubishi leaving the Uber driver with “permanent brain damage,” the complaint says. The plaintiff has lost 50 pounds since the incident and was left unable to work.
McGee suffered minor injuries and posted a photo of herself in a neck brace, blood trickling down her forehead from hitting the Mercedes windshield. The caption on the Snapchat read: “Lucky to be alive.”
“Despite Snapchat’s actual knowledge of the danger from using its product’s speed filter while driving at excessive speeds, Snapchat did not remove or restrict access to the speed filter,” the complaint says. A warning not to post while driving has always been included in the app, said a Snapchat spokesman, while avoiding any comments on pending lawsuits.