Posts Tagged ‘Crosswalk’

Labor Day of 2010, a young lady was struck, and later died in the hospital, as she walked by the street at night. Her sister seen the accident happen, and also watched as the driver that hit her sped away.

It took two weeks for the man to turn himself in, and was charged with vehicular homicide by recklessness and leaving the scene of a deadly accident. He also had charges of intoxication, and DUI on his previous record. The families not only have to grieve the loss of a loved one, but also now, after sentencing, have to live with the fact that the driver will only face 2 years in jail. Officials say that the young lady was walking in the street, when her family knows that wasn’t the case.

The sentences for drivers that face charges of vehicular homicide should be the same as any other homicide. The carelessness of one man cost the life of a young lady, and caused countless grief for families. Our condolences go out to her broken family. To learn more about hit and run accidents, please visit this site.

1-800-377-HURT (4878)

www.seriousinjury.com

It’s not just auto accidents (or motorcycle accidents or truck accidents) that cause personal injury to people using the roads in Tennessee. A recent study produced by Transportation America quantifies the epidemic of pedestrian fatalities and personal injuries that are occurring in Tennessee and across the U.S.

Over the last 15 years more than 76,000 people have been killed when doing nothing more than walking in the neighborhood where they live. While it is common for many pedestrian accidents to be blamed on the pedestrian/victim, it is more accurate to point out that most streets are not designed for pedestrians, people in wheelchairs, or people on bicycles – even though people who are “a foot” will clearly have to use streets just like automobiles and trucks.

An AARP poll of people over 50 years old found that half of the people felt they couldn’t safely cross the main road closest to where they live.  (For information about the safety of roads in your own neighborhood, click here.) The compiled data for Nashville indicates that the rate of pedestrian death puts us #28 on the list of cities in the United States. Approximately 6 pedestrians will be killed every year in Nashville, just for walking. For more information about this study, click here.

If you or anyone you know has been injured or killed in a Nashville pedestrian 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.

Over the years, our firm has handled a number of cases involving garbage trucks. While most of us are asleep, drivers of garbage trucks are already working picking up loads as early as 3 a.m. While that sounds industrious, the problem is that by 11a.m. these drivers have already been on the road for 8 hours. They drive huge vehicles that are so heavy that nothing will stand up to them.  In a residential neighborhood, the safest procedure is to have a route completed before children and others are on the street.

This case resulted from a 13 year old who was on a bicycle being struck in a crosswalk by a garbage truck. The injuries were serious, leaving the child with a 10 inch surgical scar and a permanent limp.

In the lawsuit, the garbage truck company blamed the boy’s parents for not training him on the rules of the road. Fortunately, the jury wasn’t fooled -but the garbage truck company has appealed, so it may be several years before this boy and his family receive any compensation.  Like many good cases, this is a case that took hard work and lawyers who were willing to go the distance.  For a grid you can use to evaluate who you should hire for your case, click here and to review the profile of an AVVO 10.0 rated attorney, go here.