The scourge of distracted driving is so bad that I predict many attorneys will be adding to their lawsuits complaints against employers for failure to have policies, procedures and protocols to discourage distracted driving. First, a little bit about agency. An agent is someone who is working for someone else.…
A driving simulator called One Simple Decision, made by Virtual Driver Interactive http://www.driverinteractive.com/index.php is attempting to show driver’s the short and long-term consequences of texting and driving. It starts with the driver driving, and then instructs the driver to begin texting. When the (hopefully) inevitable collision occurs, the driver goes…
Colossus is a software program used by many insurance companies to determine the value of automobile accident claims and lawsuits. The software program gets a bad rap from plaintiff’s lawyers–probably because it undervalues those claims. Now, a former Allstate and Encompass Colossus expert and a former Texas insurance commissioner are…
The federal government has closed a loophole that was the cause of untold numbers of trucking accidents. Truck drivers who hauled material to and from oil drilling sites were limited to spending 14 hours of work before resting–the problem is that the former rule did not include time at the…
The Washington Post published an article last week, Graduated Licenses Can Save Lives, Says IIHS. It discusses the process for teenage drivers to receive a license. Here’s the data: Teenage driving fatalities are down over the past few years Estimate: with stronger laws, twelve states could cut their fatal teen…
Our last post on Distracted Driving Lawsuits: Suing the Sender ended with one question: what will happen? As predicted, the New Jersey trial judge dismissed the sender of the text message. The judge stated that it was reasonable for text-senders to assume that text-receivers will act responsibly. He also noted…
In a distracted driving lawsuit where phone use is the culprit, the recipient of the e-mail or the text message is obviously at fault, and a proper defendant. Drivers must use reasonable care, and if they are not able to pay attention to driving, and that lack of attention causes…
The Governors Highway Safety Association released statistics on motorcycle accident related deaths for 2011 (Motorcyclist Traffic fatalities by State: 2011 Preliminary Data). The 2011 data goes through September, as the remainder of the year’s data is not yet finalized: 2011: 3,580 motorcycle deaths (January to September) 2010: 3,641 motorcycle deaths…
The 1998 Court of Appeals decision in Beynon v. Montgomery Cablevision ruled that pre-impact fright is compensable in Maryland auto accidents. We all know what pre-impact fright is–those brief moments before an impending collision when you realize that another car is going to hit you. This is the moment that…
The nearly mid-year District of Columbia traffic death statistics are out (up through May 11), and D.C. is doing very well. Credit is of course going to D.C.’s safety initiatives: education, better signs, safety officers, speed cameras (Mayor Vince Gray would like one on every corner), etc…. The accident death…