LONDON (AP) — A British judge has sentenced a driver to six years in prison for hitting two pedestrians moments after he sent a text on his phone.

Judge Robert Altham told 26-year-old Mohmed Salman Patel that he was so distracted he might as well have been driving with his eyes closed. Altham says "no text message was so urgent that it was worth the lives of these two young women."

Prosecutors say the accountant had sent a text message 42 seconds before calling emergency services to report the April 20, 2016 crash in the northwest city of Preston. Rachel Murphy, 23, and Shelby Maher, 17, were killed while another woman survived.