Utah driver who watched porn at the wheel charged in fatal I-15 crash

A woman in the U.S. state of Utah has been charged with negligent homicide after a fatal crash. According to investigators, she was watching pornography on her phone shortly before the collision. She faces up to five years in prison.

The tragedy happened in mid-June on an expressway (Interstate 15) near the town of Levan. According to American media reports, Christine Chao was driving a blue SUV through a stretch narrowed by road work, where a line of cars had formed ahead of her. She was not watching the road and slammed into a white sedan at full speed.

Investigators found no brake marks on the asphalt. The sedan was thrown into a third vehicle, and all three cars ended up off the roadway.

A passenger was riding in the back seat of the sedan: 66-year-old Scott Lavar Litchfield. He suffered a head injury and later died in the hospital. The day before the crash, he had celebrated his 39th wedding anniversary. Litchfield worked as a financial manager and taught religion classes for children on Sundays.

Chao readily admitted to police that she was at fault. When investigators checked her phone, they found that less than two minutes before impact she had opened a pornography site. The charging document says that two vehicles were moving slower than the defendant was driving, and she crashed into them.

Around Prague, based on reporting by novinky.cz