Sneezing and driving?

[Melody]

Hey guys so I'm making this post out of sheer curiosity, just to see if anything similair has happened to anyone. 

So a month ago one of my good friends got into a car accident. Basically he was driving when he was really sick and he had a really long sneeze attack, while driving along a major road. Anyway in the middle of his sneezing fit he lost control of his vehicle, and crashed into another car. Everyone involved in the crash was fine luckily, they all had some minor injuries but apparently the crash was so bad that his car was written off. He was also charged when the cops finally showed up. I wasn't in the vehicle with him when it happened but my other good friend was in the back seat. So when they told me what happened I was so horrified, like jesus I just feel so bad for him! Anyway he told me he wants to go to court to fight the charges but I genuinely don't know how you can prove your sneezing fit was the reason for a car accident. Anyway this situation just sucks for him, it's really bad luck I suppose. But has anyone ever experienced anything similair to this? Like if you are prone to allergies or your a rapid sneezer or something like that is it actually a danger when you're driving? For everyones sake, I really hope not! But yeah, I am definitely curious to see if anyone's had similair experiences.

Edited January 24, 2017 by Melody

[bloom]

Nothing along these lines has ever happened to me (luckily! your poor friend), but I haaaaate having to sneeze while I'm driving, so much. Realistically if it's only a few sneezes it's not going to impede your ability to drive, but I still get nervous about what might happen in those split seconds that I can't respond to. 

I'm not sure how it works in Canada, but in the states your friend would still be legally at fault no matter what, I'm pretty sure, which totally sucks.

[bingochamp7]

Wow! That's horrible for your two friends, especially because your one friend couldn't control his sneezing fit. I hope that they are alright. 

I've never had this happen, but sometimes when my parents sneeze while driving, they tend to swerve a little bit.

4 minutes ago, Melody said:

Anyway he told me he wants to go to court to fight the charges but I genuinely don't know how you can prove your sneezing fit was the reason for a car accident.

Yeah, I don't really see a judge saying that the charges will get dropped because he had a sneezing fit. 

[Melody]

7 minutes ago, Junia said:

Nothing along these lines has ever happened to me (luckily! your poor friend), but I haaaaate having to sneeze while I'm driving, so much. Realistically if it's only a few sneezes it's not going to impede your ability to drive, but I still get nervous about what might happen in those split seconds that I can't respond to. 

I'm not sure how it works in Canada, but in the states your friend would still be legally at fault no matter what, I'm pretty sure, which totally sucks.

Yeah I'm almost 99 % sure thats how it works here too. That's literally the worst situation ever, I imagine he would've gotten some demerit points on his license too. 

[Stegosaurus]

Sorry to hear about your friend. Absolutely rotten luck. I am glad that everyone was okay, but still, being punished for a situation you had zero control is unfair for him. I hope he gets off lightly.

Personally, I'm lucky in that I don't sneeze multiple times, just once, with a lot of windy force. It actually happened to me today as I was driving. I try to keep my eyes open for as long as possible. I don't think it hinders me much, but I suppose it potentially could if the timing was bad.

[Alicia2]

your poor friend, I'm afraid I don't know anything about the law so I'm not going to say anything helpful but that really is a horrible situation. A sneeze is like a loss of control, your friend probably couldn't have stopped himself from sneezing and when your body is jerking like that it must be very difficult to keep control of a car especially on a major road where he's likely to be going at a faster speed and you wouldn't have to turn the wheel so much to go off course. It wasn't really your friend's fault but it was still more his fault than anyone else's as he made the decision to drive. So horrible for him

As I said I don't know very much but we have an organisation called citizens advice that helps with legal matters for free, if you don't have that there seem to be a few places who do free legal advice online, might be worth trying one of them or a few of them to see if they think there's any hope at all, then if the answer's no he hasn't lost anything and if it's yes then he can get advice on how to go about it?