Archive for the ‘Safety Regulations’ Category

Two Beech High School students have died as a result of a car crash involving two cars on Friday, August 6 on Long Hollow Pike around 3:30 according to The Hendersonville Star News.

Two boys were both riding in a 1993 Toyota, that was driven by one of the boy’s older brother, when the car crossed the center line and  hit another Eastbound vehicle according to the Tennessee Highway Patrol’s report.

The boy who was riding in the front passenger seat, was pronounced dead at the scene of the accident, and the other was sent to Vanderbilt Children’s Hospital and was in critical condition. The 15-year-old died on Friday according to the Davidson County Medical Examiner’s Office.

37-year-old Jennifer W. was the other driver that was involved in the crash, and was injured and transported to Hendersonville Medical Center, and has since been released.

According to the report, none of the three teenagers riding in the 1993 Toyota were wearing their seatbelts, but Willingham had been wearing hers.

Our sympathy goes out to the families of the teens involved in this tragedy, and this is yet another example of the dangers of not wearing a safety belt.

According to The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), they estimate that 15,383 lives were saved by seat belts in 2006, and from 1975 to 2006, safety belts have saved the lives of 226,567 people.

Unfortunately, one out of every four Americans still do not wear their seat belts! Many of these crash related deaths, like these two teenagers, could be avoided with the simple act of buckling up.

A copy of the official police report may be obtained by contacting:

1-800-377-HURT (4878)

www.seriousinjury.com

A wreck that occurred around 3 p.m. on Sunday August 8 on North Greenhill Road in Mt. Juliet took the life of a 16 year old girl, according to The Wilson Post.

She was a junior at Wilson Central High School, was a passenger in the 2003 Mercury Mountaineer pickup at the time of the wreck, and according to police she was not wearing her seat belt.

The 17 year old driver of the car, also a female, was wearing her safety belt and survived the crash. According to police, the driver crossed over the center line and then overcorrected, causing the truck to lose control.

The girl was thrown from the vehicle during the incident and landed about 90 feet from the road. According to the Wilson Post, she was transported to Vanderbilt Children’s Hospital, but died at 6:34 p.m. that evening.

“The driver of the vehicle wore her seatbelt while the passengers did not,” said Trooper Bill Fitzgerald of the Tennessee Highway Patrol, according to the report.

Approximately 35,000 people die in automobile accidents each year, and about 50 percent of these victims could have been saved if they had been wearing a seat belt.

Drivers and passengers are also 25 times more likely to be killed or gravely injured when they are thrown from the automobile that when remain in the vehicle.

This is a sad, sad thing for the family of this young woman. Our sympathy goes out to the family of the victim, and we can only hope that this can serve as a reminder to others to always fasten your seat belt when driving or riding in a motor vehicle.

A copy of the official police report may be obtained by contacting:

1-800-377-HURT (4878)

www.seriousinjury.com

Tennessee auto accidents can result in serious injury or death when the victims are ejected from their cars. Research published by NHTSA has shown that unbelted victims are at much higher risk for ejection than those with seatbelts. The actual data shows that more than 15,000 lives were saved by the use of seatbelts in 2007 alone.

When the driver and passengers in a Tennessee car accident do not use their seatbelts, they are  are 17.7 times more likely to be ejected during a crash. Only 2% of belted passengers were ejected during a crash.

If you or anyone you know has been injured or killed in a Nashville or Tennessee car accident, please contact Nashville injury attorney Phillip Miller and the Tennessee personal injury attorneys at Phillip Miller and Associates at (615) 356-2000, or contact our office online here.

One last thing: If you are hurt and have any questions at all, contact our office at (615) 356-2000. Don’t delay. Cases involving personal injury or death in Tennessee must be acted on quickly. Time is running. Call for an appointment, if it’s bad enough that you need to read this far into a website blog, it’s bad enough to get an attorney involved.

Auto accidents in Tennessee can be caused by what are often routine traffic manuvers. U-turns are done thousands of times every day, usually without incident, but they can also be the cause of auto accidents and personal injury. The problem is that they are very hazardous manuevers both to the driver executing the U turn and to any oncoming traffic.

The key for any driver is to keep a proper look out. This means that the U- turn does not begin until the driver is sure there is no oncoming traffic that will be affected by the U turn temporarily blocking a lane during the turn. Tennessee’s Rules of the Road specifically provide that drivers must keep a proper look out (see pages 62-65, Chapter 9, Tennessee Driver’s Manual). Following those rules keeps everyone safe from unnecessary auto accidents and personal injury.

If you or anyone you know has been injured or killed in a Tennessee  car accident, please contact Nashville injury attorney Phillip Miller and the Nashville  personal injury attorneys at Phillip Miller and Associates at (615) 356-2000, or contact our office online here.

One last thing: If you are hurt and have any questions at all, contact our office at (615) 356-2000. Don’t delay. Cases involving personal injury or death in Tennessee must be acted on quickly. Time is running. Call for an appointment, if it’s bad enough that you need to read this far into a website blog, it’s bad enough to get an attorney involved.

Seatbelts make a difference in reducing personal injury in auto accidents. Although seatbelts have been required safety equipment in passenger cars since the 70’s, there is no such requirement for buses. Does it make sense that school buses in Tennessee or anywhere else should be operated without this kind of basic safety equipment? There have been arguments over the years that the rigid, closely spaced seating in school buses provides adequate protection and makes seatbelts unnecessary. School bus accidents are very serious events. Rigid closely placed seats do not protect students from lateral “t-bone” collisions (where they are knocked out of their seats) or from rear-end or rollover collisions. Rollover collisions are especially dangerous to school children who have nothing to keep them in their seats once the bus begins to roll. Finally, the Federal Department of Transportation is considering a requirement of seatbelts in buses, see their plan here.  The National Coalition for School Bus Safety has been adovcating for this for years. For more information from the National Coalition on School Bus Safety, click here. If seat belts reduce personal injury in auto accidents, don’t we want the same for our kids?

Auto accidents from sudden acceleration is often thought to be the fault of the driver, but not always. Sudden acceleration in Toyotas and Lexus automobiles has been a problem for at least 8 years. Since 2001 more than 1,000 Toyota and Lexus owners have reported that their vehicles suddenly accelerated on their own. When this happened the cars went out of control, crashing into other cars, trees, walls, and even going off the road. Obviously if a child, animal, or another adult was around – the consequences would be much worse than vehicle damage, and the blame would have been placed on the driver! This is what anyone would consider a “product defect“.  To state the obvious – cars aren’t supposed to suddenly accelerate on their own, and when they do – bad things are likely to happen. Although complaints were filed with the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, Bush administration officials and appointees chose to dismiss the majority of complaints by owners without investigation. It’s clear now that there have probably been more than 2,000 instances of sudden acceleration since 2001, and a 2007 NHTSA survey found that 10% of Lexus owners complained of this problem, putting the number even higher.

Why would appointees from any political party in control of a governmental safety organization assume that consumers would report a problem if it didn’t exist? Or assume that the incident was always the fault of the driver? What kind of self-righteous, pea-brained industry hack would allow a dangerous defect like this to go uninvestigated for the better part of a decade? FEMA wasn’t the only department of the Federal Government that was put in the hands of wrong minded people.

For more information, click here.

Car crashes and auto accidents where children are involved can be catastrophic. In a study published in Pediatrics, researchers studied more than 7000 crashes and found that children who were in a booster seat were 45% less likely to be injured than children who were in seat belts alone. The greatest reduction in injuries was in side impact collisions. While the overall reduction in injury risk was 45%, for nearside collisions the use of a booster seat reduced injury risk 68%. Booster seats are required (in most states) for children between the ages of 6 and 8. This study suggests that there is no difference (from a safety performance standpoint) between booster seats that have backs and those that do not have backs. Some older children in this range may think a backless booster is more acceptable than a booster that may resemble a child seat for a younger child. While your 6-8 year old may want to be “grown-up” and just use a seat belt, it is clearly a choice they should not be allowed to make. For information about child seat guidelines and airbag risks to children, click here.

Much is made about “safety fines” and government regulations that  might somehow affect business in a negative way. The fact is that most regulations have been developed in close coordination with the business community, and enforcement is weak or non-existent. Work place safety?  It is better than it was 50 years ago, but it’s not because the government has taken seriously its’ obligation to fine companies with safety violations. Some workers comp injuries continue to occur because of weak or non-existent enforcement of safety rules.  Here’s a real world example.  A deputy sheriff is on temporary assignment at a fire station, and is sleeping there overnight. The fire station has two doors about 15′ apart. One goes to the bathroom, the other to a shaft where the fire pole is located. There is no light or markings for either. At 3 a.m. the 43 year old deputy sheriff gets up to go to the bathroom and steps through the door in front of the shaft for the firepole, falling 18 feet. He breaks legs, ribs, and his pelvis. He is unable to ever return to work. Regulations about marking doorways into shafts have been around for decades.  The fine?  $800.00.  Can anyone realistically believe that an $800 fine will bring about change? The importance of lawsuits for personal injury often transcends compensating the injured and their families, it brings positive change and make this a safer world.