Police: Driver took selfies, posted about Happy song on Facebook just before fatal crash

High Point police say the woman who died in a head-on collision Thursday was posting selfies and updating her Facebook status moments before the fatal crash. Courtney Ann Sanford, 32, of Clemmons, updated her Facebook status with: “The happy song makes me HAPPY” one minute before the crash was called in to police, investigators say.

“These posts were brought to investigators’ attention by family and friends,” said Lt. Charles Lanier with the High Point Police Dept. “Investigators say that she also was taking pictures of herself while driving. The posts were very close proximity in time to our first calls on the crash.”

Lanier said that the Facebook status update was posted at 8:33 a.m. Police and rescue workers were called to the crash at 8:34 a.m.

Sanford was heading north on Business 85 at Baker Road when her 2005 Toyota Corolla crossed the median into oncoming traffic. Her car slammed into a company-owned truck that was headed southbound. The crash shut down the highway for several hours. Police say it appeared that Sanford died upon impact.

North Carolina outlawed texting and driving in December 2009 and, although the law does not specifically mention Facebook and Twitter, the law says drivers may not “manually enter multiple letters or text in the (mobile telephone) as a means of communicating with another person.”

Lanier said that Sanford’s death serves as a reminder about distracted driving. “You’ve got to pay attention on the road,” he said. “There’s so much going on, you can’t afford to be looking down at a phone or a computer or taking pictures of yourself. That takes a great deal of attention off of what you’re doing. Nothing is worse than losing your life or the life of someone else to tell people how you’re doing.”

Remember this PSA?

Yes I do. And when my dad was teaching me how to drive when I was 18 (and this was in late 70’s; long before any cell phones) he told me something along the same lines that I have never forgotten:

“Assume that 99% of all the other drivers on the road with you at any and all times are complete morons; these are people who shouldn’t be behind the wheel; they are inexperienced, self obsessed, drunk or drugged or senile or just plain moronic; they are in too much of a hurry, not paying any attention to you, to the road or the road conditions and they will eventually do something very moronic. If you drive expecting them to be the morons that most of them are and you don’t act like a moron yourself, you will avoid just about most accidents.”

And that advice has served very me well as I’ve avoided many, many accidents over the years by assuming the drivers in front of me, behind me, beside me, in oncoming traffic, at intersections, are indeed morons of one kind or another. I can’t tell you how many accidents I’ve avoided by driving “defensively” and paying attention and anticipating the actions of other drivers.

Although in December I did get into an accident, only my second one in my 30+ years of driving, not counting the time a year and a half ago when some guy backing out of the driveway across the street from my nephew’s house, backed into my car parked in my nephew’s driveway – there wasn’t much I could do to avoid that.

I was driving to work one morning, travelling the same route I take every day and coming up on an intersection in a small rural town with a two way stop where I had no stop sign and had the right of way.

A woman was sitting fully stopped at the cross street and she looked right at me as I was just about to cross the intersection; I know because I made eye contact with her and she with me, and then she suddenly pulled through the stop sign and right in front of me. Fortunately I wasn’t speeding and in fact I was going a bit slower than normal as it had been sleeting earlier and I had even delayed going to work to allow for the road conditions to get better. But there just wasn’t enough time/distance for me to stop in time and I hit her on the driver’s side rear door. There was very little damage to my car; just a scrape on my front bumper but her car had a pretty good dent in the driver’s side rear door.

I kind of felt sorry for her and her husband as they were elderly. It was her husband who first got out of the car and he was very apologetic, immediately admitting that it was “their” fault. She got out the car and, while not hurt, as that was my very first concern; she was quite shaken up and seemed to me to be a bit confused and disoriented. She also apologized and said “I just didn’t see you honey” and “we were on our way home from at meeting at our church”, indicating to me that she would have been familiar with this intersection. The next thing she said, as she was holding her hands to her abdomen was to her husband; “I’ve really, really got to go to the bathroom now!” And I wasn’t going to argue with her or admonish her that she looked right at me and then pulled though the stop sign right in front of me and I didn’t ask if she was in a hurry and pulled out in front of me because she had to go to the bathroom and was in a hurry to get home but from she said, I sort of assumed this might have been the case. I figured it wasn’t worth upsetting her or her husband any more since they both admitted they were in the wrong.

We pulled our cars out of the intersection and parked along the side of the road and I exchanged insurance information with the husband while his wife kept complaining that she “really had to go”. I pointed her to the church school across the street and suggested that perhaps they might let her use their bathroom. I also kept asking her if she was OK. Her husband and I continued to exchange information and I took a few pictures of the damage, the intersection, etc., with my cell phone just in case I needed them for my insurance company (and a good thing smart phones are for) and he kept apologizing and then said to me; “I really want to thank you for being so nice”.

I just smiled at him and said, “Well, that’s why we call them accidents and not “on-purposes”. There is no reason for me not to be nice, accidents happen, I’m just glad it wasn’t worse and that nobody was hurt and the damage isn’t so bad”. I also asked him again if his wife was OK and asked him if she was “OK to drive home”…trailing off a bit…asking; “Is she really OK to be driving?” He looked at me with a very sad expression and said, “No. I don’t think she will be driving any more after today.”

: (

I really hope that if and when it comes the time when I get to the age where I’m no longer able to drive safely, that I have the good sense to stop or that someone in my family tells me so and offers to drive me around.

Werner Herzog ! I watched the video, well done.

Yes I think it was very well done as it not only told the stories of the victims but also of some of the people who caused accidents due to texting and how their lives were also changed forever for doing something so unimportant.

The one that really hit home for me was the young guy who rear ended the Amish buggie and killed several children – just heartbreaking especially when he read the letter from the Amish father. I work in a small town in rural Lancaster county PA and I often encounter Amish buggies along with slow moving farm tractors on my way back and forth to work. The scenery around there is beautiful but at every turn, at the crest of every hill is a potential accident waiting to happen. I pay very close attention; I keep my eyes on the road and my hands on the wheel and my cell phone on “silent mode” and in my purse.

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