Automobile Accidents

Published on: May 17, 2012

AT&T Publishes Teenage Texting & Driving Statistics

distracted driving accident attorney.jpg AT&T conducted a survey of 1,200 teenagers (ages 15-19) to learn more about driving behavior and attitudes toward texting and driving. Here are some of their conclusions:

97% of teens know that texting while driving is dangerous
70% of teens believe that texting while stopped at a red light is dangerous
54% of Hispanic teens admit to texting while driving
41% of Caucasian teens admit to texting while driving
42% of African-American teens admit to texting while driving
80% of Hispanic teens admit to using their phones while at red lights
71% of Caucasian teens admit to using their phones while at red lights
70% of African-American teens admit to using their phones while at red lights
46% of teens send between 21 and 100 text messages per day

AT&T’s Infographic is pretty good–it highlights a lot of information designed to help promote their “Texting & Driving: It Can Wait” campaign. Two things that caught my eye:

At 65 mph a car travels the length of a basketball court in a single second
Texting takes your eyes off of the road for an average of 5 seconds

Like many providers, AT&T has designed a mobile app (DriveMode) to prevent text messages from reaching a driver.
For more information on distracted driving, check out our Charm City Lawyer Blog posts and past Maryland Car Accident Lawyers Blog posts. If you believe that you have been injured because another driving was driving while texting, contact us at 443.850.4426, or online for a free consultation.

Published on: May 14, 2012

What do Doctors, Drivers, and Pedestrians Have in Common?

By Posner & Cord, LLC

Distracted pedestrian.jpg None of them should be texting. We’ve blogged before about distracted driving and even distracted doctoring. Now, Fort Lee New Jersey is issuing tickets to pedestrians who ignore traffic signals or who jaywalk while looking down at their phones.

There were 117 tickets issued in one month, at $85.00 a pop. The question here, as with all governmental cell phone regulation, is whether the government should be taking this parental role? Opponents of regulation say that the government should just leave us alone, and that if we are stupid enough to text and walk across the street, we deserve to get run over. Proponents say that the problem does not just affect those who text–it affects the motorist who hits us, the person who hits them, and costs taxpayers money when someone isn’t insured and needs medical care.

The problem is of course, widespread. A New York State Senator commented in an ABC news article on one of two deaths in Brooklyn:

Published on: May 9, 2012

Self-Driving Cars: Maryland Accident Prevention?

By Posner & Cord, LLC

Self-driving car.jpg We’ve all heard about Google’s research into self-driving cars. Now the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) is getting into the mix, believing that 80% of automobile accidents can be prevented if vehicles are given the ability to communicate with each other (see article, Detroit Free Press).

This “vehicle-to-vehicle” communication and related technologies can be used to implement crash-warning systems, and lane departure alerts. According to the NHTSA’s Administrator:

Our research shows that these technologies could help prevent a majority of the collisions that typically occur in the real world, such as rear-end collisions, intersection crashes, or collisions while switching lanes.

Published on: May 2, 2012

Off-the-Job Injuries While Treating for On-the-Job Injuries

By Posner & Cord, LLC

WC poster.jpg If you are injured while seeking medical treatment that is required in order for you to go back to work, when the original injury was a Maryland workers’ comp injury, is the second injury a workers’ compensation claim, as well?

The Court of Special Appeals answered that question no. Here’s what happened in Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority v. Jan Williams, just decided last week.

The claimant injured his back and left knee while on-the-job on April 15, 2008. A year later, he was attending a specialized type of physical therapy known as work hardening. He had a session, and went to his truck during the lunch break. After the lunch break, he got out of his truck and walked back to his therapy. While in the parking lot, another driver backed up into him.

Published on: April 30, 2012

National Cell Phone Driving Ban on the Horizon?

By Posner & Cord, LLC

distracted driving accident attorney.jpg U.S. Secretary Ray LaHood is continuing his crusade against cell phones and upping the ante, proposing a nationwide ban talking, texting and e-mailing while driving. His latest forum (see the news story by Reuters) was a distracted driving summit in Texas last week. His main argument centers around the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration’s estimate of 3,000 fatal traffic accidents in 2011, caused by distracted driving. The NHTSA also states that cell phone use delays reactions just as much as a BAC of 0.08.

According to LaHood:

It used to be that if an officer pulled you over for drunk driving, he would pat you on the back, maybe call you a cab or take you home, but he wouldn’t arrest you. Now that has changed, and the same enforcement can work for people who talk on cell phones while driving.

Published on: April 25, 2012

The Do’s and Don’ts of a Minor Car Accident

By Posner & Cord, LLC

A blog post by a State Farm Employee has been making the rounds on a few lawyer listserves that I belong to. It is an entirely reasonable and well-written post titled “The Do’s and Don’ts of a Minor Car Accident.”

One point stated by the employee:

Don’t assume there aren’t injuries.

Published on: April 19, 2012

Lessons Learned From Second Shut-Down of Anne Arundel County Truck Company

By Posner & Cord, LLC

18-wheeler truck accident Truck drivers are subject to a great deal of regulation, and rightly so. These are huge machines, and the smallest errors, whether because of driver fatigue, inadequate pre-trip inspections, or distracted driving, can cause life-altering destruction. There is always an incentive by truck companies to cut corners, cut costs, and improve their bottom line. The good trucking companies ignore those incentives, and play it safe. The bad ones skirt the federal and state regulations, and cause Maryland truck accidents.

Here’s the story of one really bad one. Unfortunately, it’s a local business, based out of Anne Arundel County, Maryland. In November 2011, trucking company Gunthers Transport LLC was forced by the federal government to close up shop. Gunthers, an “imminent hazard to the public,” was cited for safety violations and seven collisions within a one-year period. The company was caught falsifying driver logs to circumvent driver rest and sleep requirements. In the 1990’s a prior version of the company recently lost a civil lawsuit from a situation where one of its drivers killed one person and left another permanently disabled. The company declared bankruptcy, and still owes its victim a substantial amount of the $16.5 million judgment.

Just a few weeks later, a new company was born–Clock Transport LLC. Interestingly enough, it had the same address as Gunthers, and the person in charge was the son of Gunthers. Maryland State Police quickly noticed this, and made it a point to pull over every single truck from that address to check for safety violations.

Published on: April 5, 2012

Maryland Punitive Damages: Not For Auto Accidents, And Not For Drunk Driving Lawsuits

By Posner & Cord, LLC

Many clients come to us expecting that they will be entitled to punitive damages in their Maryland auto accident. This is especially true in cases where the negligent driver was drunk, or tried to flee the scene of the auto accident, or was driving while texting. Sadly, punitive damages are rarely available, even in these extreme examples.

Punitive damages are “damages on an increased scale, awarded to the plaintiff over and above what will barely compensate him for his property loss, where the wrong done to him was aggravated by circumstances of violence, oppression, malice, fraud, or wanton and wicked conduct on the part of the defendant.” (Black’s Law Dict., 1991 ed., pg. 390). These damages are intended to punish the defendant, to make an example of him.

Every state has its own law on punitive damages. In Maryland, the purpose of punitive damages is to punish the defendant for egregiously bad conduct toward the plaintiff, and also to deter the defendants and others contemplating similar behavior. The standard in Maryland is gross negligence or actual malice.

Published on: March 29, 2012

Using Technology To Stop Distracted Driving

By Posner & Cord, LLC

distracted driving accident attorney.jpg Though it is aimed primarily at parents of new drivers, many cell phone carriers and other services are offering technological solutions to distracted driving. The basic premise is that cell phones can be automatically deactivated, or some functions can be automatically deactivated, when the phones internal GPS system detects the device moving at a specified rate of speed.

Some of the programs automatically route incoming calls to voicemail, and send automatic replies to text messages. Most of the teenage programs can be set to send notifications to parents when the features are disabled

Some products, like FleetSafer, are designed for adults and also eliminate the ability to send and receive e-mails, and use internet browsers, while behind the wheel. T-Mobile, Sprint and AT&T all have products that work on some of their phones.

Published on: March 21, 2012

School Buses and Seat-Belts: New Indiana Lawsuit Filed

By Posner & Cord, LLC

Indiana Bus Crash.jpg The IndyStar reports in Lawsuit in Fatal School Bus Crash Focuses on Seat Belts, that the family of Michael Watkins, Lenae Watkins and Neveh Hobbs filed an automobile accident lawsuit against the Miller Transportation, Inc. Miller owns and operates the school bus involved in the March 12 collision which took the life of another student (not named in the lawsuit), Donasty Smith. The bus collided into a concrete pillar.

The lawsuit includes claims that Miller did not adequately inspect the bus. At this point, the police have inspected the wreck and concluded that the bus passed inspection on January 3, and there was no indication of anything faulty. However, the plaintiffs are obviously preserving their claim and their right to have their own experts inspect the bus.

The lawsuit also makes claims that Miller did not adequately monitor the health of the bus driver, who died in the collision. The autopsy results have not been released, yet.