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Teens and Dangerous Driving
Alcohol has long been considered the most dangerous
factor that impairs drivers on the road. According to
statistics from the Substance Abuse and Mental Health
Services Administration and as reported by Mother’s
Against Drunk Driving (MADD),the rate of
drunk driving
is highest among young drivers — 23.4 percent of all
reported drunk drivers are 21 to 25 years old. This is
likely because of social norms that dictate young adults
are the most common bar patrons; it may also have to do
with the fact that younger drivers may not yet have
systems in place to ensure that a designated driver is
present.
The numbers are even more dire for drivers who are not even yet technically legal to drink ever: according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), drivers aged 16 to 20 are 17 times more likely to die in a crash when they have an illegal blood alcohol content (above .08 percent) than if they were not drinking at all.
How to Seek Compensation after a Traumatic Brain Injury
Traumatic brain injures
are one of the most severe and common injuries sustained
after serious car accidents. According to the American
Speech Language Hearing Association, there are two main
types of traumatic brain injury (TBI): closed and open. An
open TBI would be something such as a gunshot wound that
literally opens the flesh. A closed TBI would be something
such as a serious blow sustained when, for example, a
person’s head hits the dashboard in a severe accident.
Subsequent damage can either be experienced primarily, or much later. Blood clots are an example of a primary injury resulting from TBI; secondary brain damage is considered brain swelling or increased pressure in the skull that can occur much later after the accident occurs.
To prove you have been the victim of TBI, the most important thing to do is to immediately seek medical attention and be sure to keep it all very well documented. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, a large percentage of TBIs in the United States are the result of car accidents. Of the approximately 2 million TBIs experienced in the U.S. every year, roughly 286,000 are caused by car crashes. The trick is that after a car accident, secondary injuries are very common; this means that sometimes not all TBIs resulting from car accidents are reported as such.
Comparative Negligence in Illinois
One person’s negligence can have serious dramatic
effects for another person’s life. Some of the most
serious incidents of negligence occur when a person is
behind the wheel of a car.
Driving negligently
can have devastating effects not only on the driver (who
will likely be held accountable for his or her actions),
but even more-so, perhaps, to the person who didn’t cause
the accident. Negligence while driving can result in
debilitating injury, such as a traumatic brain injury or
spinal cord injury—which have long-lasting effects on a
person’s life well past the incident itself. Not all car
accidents are the sole responsibility of one driver,
however.
According to the Illinois State government Department of Insurance, Illinois has comparative negligence laws to determine how responsibility will be shared between two responsible parties. An example of this is if one driver is speeding, and another driver makes a left turn in front of the speeding car. Both drivers in this incident are guilty of having contributed to the accident through their own negligence: one because she wasn’t obeying the speed limit; the other because he didn’t appropriately look before pulling out.
How to Avoid the Risk of Tire Blowout Accidents
With summer just around the corner, many of us will be
hitting the road - visiting relatives, theme parks, the
beaches, the mountains - making family vacation memories
to last a lifetime. It is important when embarking on a
road trip to make sure that your vehicle is mechanically
sound. It is also critical for safety that the tires on
the vehicle you and your family are traveling in are not
at
risk of a tire blowout accident.
How many times have you seen tire tread scattered all over the road because some unfortunate driver had his or her tire explode? According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), there are 11,000 vehicle accidents every year which are caused by bad tires. Most of these blowouts are avoidable if the correct precautions are taken.
Tips to Help Prevent Backover Accidents
According to statistics from the U.S. Department of
Transportation, there are more than 200 people killed
every year and another 17,000 injured in backover
accidents.
Backover accidents
occur when a driver is backing up their vehicle and
strikes an object they did not see, usually because of a
blind zone in the vehicle. The popularity of SUVs and
trucks – which are notorious for having blind zones - has
only increased the number of backover accidents. Sixty
percent of these incidents involve these types of
vehicles.
Children are especially vulnerable to backover accidents. Every week, there are at least 50 children who are struck by a vehicle backing up. Tragically, two of those young victims will die from their injuries. Even more tragic is that in 70 percent of these accidents, the driver of the vehicle is a parent or other close relative of the child.
Chrysler Again under Fire for Defective Fuel Tanks in Jeep Models
Approximately two years ago, Chrysler recalled almost
three million of Jeep Grand Cherokee and Liberty SUVs that
were reportedly at risk of catching fire from the fuel
tank. This recall was issued after some serious legal
wrangling, as Chrysler had initially refused to recall the
vehicles, despite reports from the National Highway
Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) that at least 51
people had been killed in explosives crashes. The NHTSA
initially began investigating reports of the
defective fuel tanks
in 2010. Chrysler finally agreed to the recall in June
2013. At issue was the design defect of the placement of
the fuel tank behind the rear axle of the vehicle. The
year and models of the vehicles recalled are 1993-2004
Jeep Grand Cherokees and 2002-2007 Liberties.
New Device Could Help Law Enforcement Nab Texting Drivers
Study after study has proven how dangerous
texting and driving
is. According to the National Safety Council (NSC), over
25 percent of all fatal car crashes which occur in the
U.S. every year now involve cell phone use. And yet people
still text and drive.
Many people think that using their phone’s voice-to-text function is safer, but studies have shown that is not any better than actually texting.
As a result, most states have enacted some kind of texting and driving laws. Illinois’ law not only forbids texting and driving, but it bans all hand-held cell phone activity. Penalty for a first offense is $75. For subsequent violations the penalties can be $100, $125 and $150.
Now there is news that a Virginia company is developing a product – similar to a radar gun which helps law enforcement catch speeding drivers – which would help nab drivers who are texting and driving.
Fixed Object Accident among Most Dangerous
In early June two people were killed in a
car accident
in Park Forest when the driver of the car struck a tree.
One person fled the scene after the accident and the other
two were transported to an Olympia Fields hospital, where
the medical examiner pronounced that they were both killed
in the crash.
Cars running into trees may seem like the least likely way cause of a fatal crash, but it happens more than one may think. According to the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS), roughly 20 percent of all car accident fatalities result when a car leaves the roadway and strikes an inanimate object on the side of the road. Trees are among the most common types of fixed objects that cars strike and result in accident fatalities. Trees, in fact, according to IIHS, accounted for 50 percent of all fixed object crash fatalities in 2013, resulting in 3,604 deaths that year alone.
Most Common Causes of a Rear-End Collision
Rear-end collisions
are among the most common types of accidents experienced
by any driver on American roads. According to the National
Highway Traffic and Safety Administration (NHTSA), not
only are they among the most frequently-occurring type of
accident, rear-end collisions are also a leading cause of
injuries, fatalities, and property damage caused in motor
vehicle accidents. Most rear-end collisions can be avoided
or analyzed only by understanding driver behavior leading
up to the crash.
Younger drivers were by far the drivers who experienced such roadway crashes most frequently—first drivers under the age of 18, and then drivers 18–24-years-old. The number of rear-end collisions then declined steadily, until it spiked again involving drivers over the age of 69. The most obvious reason for this is, of course, due to delayed reaction times or an inability to maintain control of the car in difficult weather conditions.
NSC Recommends No Passengers for New Teen Drivers
A new report issued by the National Safety Council (NSC)
reveals that it is unsafe for teen age drivers to have any
passengers in the vehicle with them. One study cited by
the NSC found that even one passenger in the vehicle
increases the
risk of an accident
by almost 45 percent.
Besides texting or using their cell phones, there are several common dangerous activities that many teens engage in while driving, including applying makeup, eating, searching for a radio station, going through a backpack or purse in search of an item, and even reading. The NSC says that another item that should be added to the list of things that cause distracted driving for teens is having a passenger in the vehicle with them.
The number of teens who are killed in fatal car crashes is out of proportion compared to the number of teen drivers there actually are on the road. When the fatal crash rate per mile of teen drivers between the ages of 16 and 19 years of age is compared to the fatal crash rate per mile of drivers who are over 20 years of age, the teen driver fatal crash rate is three times higher. Yet, there are many more adult drivers on U.S. roads than there are teen age drivers. The fatal crash rate per mile for drivers who are 16 and 17 years old is twice as high as the rate for 18 and 19 year-old driver.
Contact a Lake County Vehicle Accident Attorney Who is Ready to Help You
If you or a member of your family has been injured in a motor vehicle accident, contact our office. Call 847-662-3303 to set up a free initial consultation at one of our four convenient locations. There is no risk because we only collect fees if you collect compensation. With offices in Libertyville, Waukegan, Richmond, and Chicago, we represent clients in Lake County, Cook County, DuPage County, and McHenry County.
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