Texting kills

A girl of ten was killed by a passenger airbag after her mother crashed while trying to help her send a text message, an inquest heard yesterday.

Chloe Bunney suffered a fractured skull when the safety device in the VW Golf activated with 'colossal force' and smashed into her forehead. The inquest heard that the schoolgirl was leaning forward in her seat when she asked her mother, Jolene Bunney, 30, to help her send a text message to her grandparents. But as Miss Bunney, a national account manager for a food firm, leaned over she lost control of the car which crashed into two other vehicles.

The child’s mother

called for greater awareness of the potential danger of airbags

Oh really? It wasn’t the airbag that was the problem, it was, first and foremost, the stupidity of the mother in taking her eyes off the road ahead in order to concentrate on helping to send a text message. The human capacity for self-denial is and self-deception is remarkable.

Presumably the only reason this driver was not prosecuted for causing death by dangerous driving is that the death of her own daughter was felt to be punishment enough.