Grooming While Driving
There are many activities that have been discussed previously on this blog that do not mesh well with driving, such as texting, drinking alcohol, using illegal drugs, and sleeping. One such activity that has been little discussed but is equally as dangerous is grooming or primping while driving. On any given day in a heavy- or medium-traffic area, one is likely to see a multitude of derivatives of this behavior. It is not at all uncommon to see another driver putting on makeup, tweezing his or her eyebrows, styling his or her hair, generally checking his or her appearance etc. In some cases, one may even see another driver performing some routine bikini-line maintenance while her passenger steers the vehicle.
The issue with all of these forms of activity is that when a driver is focused on his or her hair, eyes, lips, eyebrows, or other assorted bodily locations, that driver is not completely focused on the road ahead, which, as luck would have it, is where all of the other vehicles and pedestrians who are using the roadway happen to be. This failure to keep a proper lookout is negligent in Tennessee and can result in an accident for which the negligent driver will be held responsible. Needless to say, the act of grooming or primping while driving is one that causes more than its fair share of accidents on the roadways, especially in high-traffic areas where people tend to perform a good chunk of their morning beautification ritual while in the vehicle on the way to work or school.
There is simply nothing a potential victim of such activity could do to try to avoid the accident, since there is no way to know the man behind you is trying to trim his goatee in the carpool lane until he rear-ends your vehicle. However, victims can recover for their damages by bringing a personal injury suit against the negligent driver, which would enable the victim(s) to recover for the damages and injuries caused by the negligent conduct.
