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Twitter Law (cont.): Doctor Drives Off Cliff While Sending Twitter Message

This is a bit creepy. On Aug. 16, I noted that:

Ever since I got Twitter installed on my BlackBerry, it has occurred to me that we cannot be far away from a time when we will regularly be reading articles with headlines such as "Six Car Pileup Results After Man Checks TwitterFon on Beltway" or "Local Woman Walks Into Manhole While Posting TwitPic."

And yet, to date, I have not seen any car crashes, boat wrecks, slip-and-falls, or any of the other things I expected directly attributed to Twitter. Are they out there? Are there other types of cases out there where damages, injuries or even crimes are being connected back to people using Twitter?

None of our readers were able to offer up any immediate examples of this. The very next day, however, on Aug. 17, a well-known plastic surgeon named Dr. Frank Ryan was killed when he accidentally drove his car over a cliff while sending a Twitter message about his dog.

ABC reports that Dr. Ryan, who is known for performing significant plastic surgery on Heidi Montag, among other things, died in a one-car collision in Los Angeles. "He lived up in Malibu on a tiny street and he was texting while driving and he accidentally went over the cliff," Ryan's ex-girlfriend Charmaine Blake told People magazine. Ryan was reportedly Tweeting about his border collie, Jill, at the time of the crash.

Posted by Bruce Carton on August 26, 2010 at 01:18 PM | Permalink | Comments (4)

Comments

Twitter Law (cont.): Doctor Drives Off Cliff While Sending Twitter Message

This is a bit creepy. On Aug. 16, I noted that:

Ever since I got Twitter installed on my BlackBerry, it has occurred to me that we cannot be far away from a time when we will regularly be reading articles with headlines such as "Six Car Pileup Results After Man Checks TwitterFon on Beltway" or "Local Woman Walks Into Manhole While Posting TwitPic."

And yet, to date, I have not seen any car crashes, boat wrecks, slip-and-falls, or any of the other things I expected directly attributed to Twitter. Are they out there? Are there other types of cases out there where damages, injuries or even crimes are being connected back to people using Twitter?

None of our readers were able to offer up any immediate examples of this. The very next day, however, on Aug. 17, a well-known plastic surgeon named Dr. Frank Ryan was killed when he accidentally drove his car over a cliff while sending a Twitter message about his dog.

ABC reports that Dr. Ryan, who is known for performing significant plastic surgery on Heidi Montag, among other things, died in a one-car collision in Los Angeles. "He lived up in Malibu on a tiny street and he was texting while driving and he accidentally went over the cliff," Ryan's ex-girlfriend Charmaine Blake told People magazine. Ryan was reportedly Tweeting about his border collie, Jill, at the time of the crash.