Washington DC Injury Lawyer Blog

At the opening of the Distracted Driving Summit, US Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood said that texting while driving has become an “an endemic” and a “menace to society.” Over 300 people are taking part in the conference, including law enforcement officials, lawmakers, and safety experts.

According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, 5,780 people died (16% of all deadly traffic collisions) and 515,000 people sustained injuries in distracted driving accidents last year. Many of these auto crashes are a result of people using cell phones and PDAs.

Distracted driving is reportedly a big problem among young drivers, especially those under age 21. Distracted driving was a factor in 16% of deadly crashes involving drivers in this age group.

Young motorists, however, aren’t the only ones who text and drive. CTIA-The Wireless Association reports that while 10 billion text messages a month were sent in December 2005, more than 110 billion texts were transmitted in December 2008.

Texting while driving is now illegal in Washington DC and 18 US states. Seven states have made it illegal to talk on a handheld cell phone while driving. Safety groups are calling on a nationwide ban making it illegal for drivers to text and have cell phone conversations. Meantime, Advocates for Highway and Auto Safety wants the government to restrict the texting and cell phone talk of the operators of tractor-trailers, large vans, and motor coaches, while the Alliance for Automobile Manufacturers (members include Ford, General Motors, and Toyota) support a ban on handheld phones and texting while driving.

Too many catastrophic car accidents are happening because drivers were distracted. Texting usually requires the use of both hands and eyes. This means that the texting driver will spend at least a few seconds not holding the steering wheel, not watching the road, and not paying attention. These few seconds can end someone’s life.

Bus accidents, train accidents, truck accidents, and car accidents have happened because motorists were distracted. Our Washington DC injury lawyers are cognizant of how distracted driving can destroy lives and we are here to help.

Distracted Driving Summit Emphasizing Danger of Texting Opens Today in Washington DC, ABC News, September 29, 2009

Govt: Nearly 6,000 deaths from driver distraction, AP, September 29, 2009

Related Web Resources:
Distracted Driving Summit, US Department of Transportation

Distracted Driving, National Safety Council

CTIA-The Wireless Association

Metro says that it fired the bus driver who struck a female jogger during a Washington DC pedestrian accident on September 3. Carla A. Proctor hit Amanda Mahnke while operating an empty bus on Florida Avenue NW. The 30-year-old jogger is Representative Rick Larsen’s communications director. She fractured her skull and sustained several other fractures during the DC Metro bus accident.

Metro cited “failing to follow standard operating procedures” as the reason for Proctor’s dismissal. The September 3 accident, which occurred close to Dupont Circle, is not the first time that the bus driver was involved in a bus crash.

In March 2003, seven motor vehicles and another bus were damaged after Proctor exited the bus to check on a faulty door. The bus accident lawsuits that were filed against Proctor and Metro accused her of neglecting to set the brake properly. This allegedly caused the empty bus to roll down a hill and into an auto, triggering a chain reaction with the other motor vehicles. A Prince George’s County jury awarded three plaintiffs $27,713 in damages. A settlement was reached in another DC bus accident claim over the multi-vehicle crash.

In December 2004, Proctor drove her Metro bus into a parked auto while turning onto Wisconsin Avenue from O Street. A 72-year-old bus passenger sued Metro for Washington DC personal injury. The case was settled in mediation under confidential terms.

In July 2003, Proctor, who was not working at the time, was involved in a motor vehicle crash that resulted in her vehicle driving through the front window of a Wendy’s in Oxon Hill. Two of the restaurant patrons sued her for Maryland personal injury. The case was settled out of court.

Proctor received five traffic tickets in January for operating an uninsured vehicle, not maintaining insurance, not having current tags, and not displaying a registration card upon demand. Charges are also pending against her for a traffic stop in Prince George’s County in 2008.

Metro fires bus driver for hitting jogger, Washington Examiner, September 25, 2009

Metrobus Crash Not The First For Driver, The Washington Post, September 16, 2009

Related Web Resource:
Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority

Continue reading " Metrobus Driver Who Struck Jogger in Washington DC Pedestrian Accident is Fired " »

According to the latest figures, over 35 million people in the world are suffering from Alzheimer’s disease or another type of dementia. This estimate is about 10% more than what scientists projected several years ago.

One reason for the underestimation was that the increase in Alzheimer’s in developing countries had not been fully evaluated. Now, however, there are enough people in poorer nations living long enough for dementia to kick in. By 2050, the World Alzheimer Report says that some 115.4 million people will be suffering from Alzheimer’s.

Age, diabetes, obesity, and high cholesterol can increase the chances that a person may develop Alzheimer’s. In North America, the Alzheimer’s Association of the US says that over 5 million people are suffering from the disease. One in every eight people in the 65 and above age group and almost one in every two people in the over 85 age range has Alzheimer’s.

Dementia Patients in Washington DC Nursing Homes
With more people suffering from Alzheimer’s and other forms of dementia, nursing homes that agree to care for patients with this type of disease must make sure that they have the resources, experience, training, and staff to do a proper job.

Patients suffering from dementia may:

• Experience memory loss.
• May be prone to wandering.
• Have a hard time recognizing people.
• Be prone to inappropriate behaviors.
• Become violent.
• Forget people and places.
• Develop communication difficulties.
• Suffer from mood swings.
• Neglect their own care.

Dementia patients need specialized, more hands-on supervisory care than other nursing home residents. Nursing home patients with dementia may need protection from themselves and—depending on their condition and symptoms—other residents may need protection from them. Patients suffering from dementia are also at risk of becoming the victims of Washington DC nursing home abuse or neglect because they aren’t always aware of their surroundings or of what is happening to them.

If you suspect that your loved one is being abused or neglected, do not hesitate to contact our Washington DC nursing home negligence law firm immediately to request your free case evaluation. Nursing home neglect or abuse can cause serious injury to your loved one.

Report: 35 Million-Plus Worldwide Have Dementia, CBS2.com, September 21, 2009

Related Web Resources:
Alzheimer's Disease International

Alzheimer's Association

A powerful video excerpt (see below) showing the worst consequences that can arise when someone is texting while driving has become a viral hit on the Internet. The four-minute footage, shot in Wales, is intended to show teens why they shouldn’t text and drive at the same.

The footage has caught the attention of more than Welsh school kids and has been viewed online more than six million times. The video shows a teen driver texting while riding in a vehicle with two friends. Because she is engaging in distracted driving, her car moves into oncoming traffic.

What happens next is extremely disturbing to see. The footage shows harsh, close-up details, including one girl’s head crashing into a car window and a lifeless baby with eyes wide open sitting in one of the vehicles involved in the deadly multi-vehicle car accident.

Just how effective will this video prove at discouraging teenagers and adults from texting while driving? This remains to be seen. Some experts, however, believe that scary footage is not enough to promote real change.

Teens Who Text While Driving
By this time, most people are aware of the dangers that texting while driving can create—yet many people still engage in this type of distracted driving and most states have yet to enact laws banning texting while operating a motor vehicle. Fortunately, Washington DC does have a law banning texting while driving. However, that doesn't necessarily mean that everyone abides by it. This can lead to deadly DC auto collisions.

Teenagers, easily distracted to begin with and lacking the experience of older drivers, do not need the additional distraction of texting while driving. Yet according to an AAA study published in 2007, 46% of teens say they text message while driving.

When you consider that commercial truckers, who are professional drivers, increase their crash risk by 23 times, why wouldn’t the crash risk increase significantly for inexperienced teen drivers?

Texting while driving, updating Facebook, Twittering, and surfing the Internet while driving are distracted forms of driving that can be grounds for a Washington DC injury lawsuit if people are injured or killed because a driver was distracted.

Doubts About Scare Tactics on Drivers Who Text, The New York Times, August 31, 2009

Related Web Resources:
Watch the Video Excerpt

Teen Driver Menace: Text-Messaging, Suite 101, October 22, 2007

Related Web Resources:
Teens Admit Text Messaging Most Distracting While Driving

In the last 18 months, at least 11 sexual assault crimes following a similar pattern have occurred in and around the Georgetown University campus. The sexual assault incidents generally involve an assailant entering through a female student’s unlocked window or door while she is asleep, getting into her bed, and groping her until she wakes up, screams, and the attacker runs off.

However, although the sexual assaults are following this pattern, the victims’ assailants do not appear to be the same person. White male, Middle Eastern male, and Hispanic male, short, tall, choppy, thin, and muscular build are among the descriptions that the women have given. The assailants also appear to belong to different age ranges.

Just last week, the beginning of the 2009-2010 academic school year, one student was sexually assaulted in her Georgetwon dorm room in Village A when her assailant entered her residence at around 4:30am last Tuesday.

Students are calling the assailant “the Georgetown Cuddler” and investigators are worried that not everyone is taking the sexual assault crimes seriously. While to date, no one has been seriously injured, police are worried that it could just be a matter of time.

Inadequate Security
Sexual assault crimes that occur on another party’s premise can be grounds for a premises liability lawsuit if the premise owner, manager, or supervisor could have done more to prevent the assault incident from happening. For example, if there has been a history of crimes occurring on or around the premise or property, then the premise owner should warn residents, patrons, or visitors and install the proper safety precautions to prevent further incidents from happening. Adequate security measures might include:

• Proper lighting
• Video cameras
• Alarm systems
• Secured entries and exits
• Security personnel
• Safety policies and procedures

If you have been a victim of a violent crime on another party's premise you should speak with an experienced Washington DC injury law firm today.

ex Assaults Around Georgetown Campus Stymie Police, Washington Post, September 4, 2009

"Georgetown Cuddler" May Be Back, NBC Washington, September 1, 2009

Related Web Resources:
Premises Liability, Justia

Georgetown University

In an attempt to improve safety and decrease the number of emergency medical hospital accidents, the National Transportation Safety Board is calling on the federal government to come up with tougher rules that emergency helicopter operators would need to abide by. Recommendations include requiring flight data recorders, night-vision systems, and autopilots on the aircrafts. The NTSB also is calling on the Health and Human Services Department to mandate that emergency helicopter operators fulfill certain safety standards before being given Medicare payments for medical flights.

Between December 2007 and October 2008, 35 people died in nine aviation accidents involving emergency medical helicopters. Since then, there have been three emergency medical accidents although, fortunately, no one has died. In the last two decades, at least 150 people have died in over 200 EMS helicopter crashes.

There has been a greater than 80% increase in the number of emergency medical helicopters in the US in the past 10 years and there are some 750 medical service helicopters in operation today. Yet these helicopters aren’t required to contain the same basic safety features that commercial planes must carry. EMS Pilots don’t have a lot of time to prepare for rescue flights and often they have to land in places that aren’t designed for aircraft landings. They may even have to avoid hitting trees, power lines, buildings, homes, and people.

The EMS aircrafts are supposed to rush accident victims and others in emergency situations to a hospital where they can get the care that they need sooner than if they were to arrive by ambulance or another motor vehicle. That’s why the number of emergency medical helicopter crashes leading to injuries and deaths has been disturbing. The aircrafts that are supposed to help save lives are in some instances causing accident injuries and deaths.

If your loved one died in an EMS accident, an airplane accident, a helicopter crash, a commercial airline crash, or another kind of accident involving an aircraft and you think that operator negligence, a defect in the design of the aircraft, or a plane malfunction caused your loved one’s death, you may have grounds for filing a Washington DC wrongful death lawsuit.

NTSB wants new rules for medical helicopters, AP, September 1, 2009

NTSB recommends training, equipment for medical helicopters; tie Medicare pay to safety, Breaking News, 24/7, September 1, 2009

NTSB Begins Hearings Into Medevac Crashes, NPR, February 3, 2009

Related Web Resources:
Medevac helicopters under scrutiny, USA Today, September 29, 2009

Medevac Helicopter Crash Kills 4 in Maryland, Fox News, September 28, 2008