Over the holidays we enjoy seeing family and friends.  Also, children get new toys.  Ralphie, in A Christmas Story, wanted a Red Ryder BB Gun.  Everyone told him, he would shoot his eye out.  The irony is that after he got his BB Gun, he almost did shoot his eye out!

Many children get new toys and parents need to be sure that they will safely use them.  Children have a tendency to find the weak point when it comes to safe operation of things.  So, do teenagers whom I have written about concerning driving safety.  Remember also that this time of the year when it gets dark early that it’s hard to see and there is driver fatigue.

I hope that you have a Merry Christmas and remember the celebration is the birth of Jesus, Savior of the world.  Have a safe holiday.

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Last night we enjoyed watching Alabama win the National Football Championship – Roll Tide!!!!!   Today, it is snowing in Birmingham.   People in Alabama are good at cheering on their football team.  However, driving in the snow is not one of our strengths.   Please stay off the highways and stay safe at home.  Regardless of whether the snow accumulates, bridges quickly freeze and you can easily lose traction.   If you do drive in this weather, be extra careful, slow down, and allow extra distance to  stop.   Roll Tide!

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clipped from onemansblog.com

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Another thing that happens when a jury is being selected at the beginning of a trial, the Judge will normally ask everyone who has insurance with (name ) company to raise their hand. Those people will automatically be removed “for cause” from the jury venire or panel, since they own insurance with that insurance company. When those not “chosen” to serve on the jury are announced, the people who have insurance with the insurance company of the driver (defendant) will be “excused,” not selected. The fact that this question was asked (it means there is insurance) goes right over the heads of many jurors. Sometimes, insurance companies will play possum, and have the judge not ask the question, because they don’t want the sharp jurors who will remember the question tell the others there on the jury that there is insurance.

Recently, a lawsuit was lost at the courthouse that some other lawyers tried. I heard about the outcome and talked with one of the attorneys who tried the case. It really was a clear case of liability (the driver who hit the other car was at fault). A middle aged woman was driving on the interstate. There was a wreck ahead, so she had to quickly stop. She did. The car behind her did not, it hit her from behind. Under the law you must maintain enough distance between your car and the car ahead so that if they suddenly stop, you can stop without hitting them.

For years, the rule-of-thumb was that you should allow one car length between you and the vehicle in front of you for every 10 MPH you are traveling. Example, you are traveling 30 MPH, you should not be closer than three car lengths so that you can stop without hitting them. More recently, an easier approach is the “two second rule.” The idea is that you choose a fixed object like a tree or light pole ahead. You start counting seconds, “One thousand one, one thousand two” from the time the vehicle in front of you goes past that object until you reach the object (tree, pole, bridge, etc.). If you reach it before you have counted two seconds, you are traveling too fast and need to slow down. See, Alabama Driver’s Manual, pg. 37.

The driver who hit the woman was a very likeable young man. He said that he just could not stop the car when the lady before him suddenly stopped on the interstate. He was driving a relatively low-price car and the woman was driving a much nicer car. The woman who was hit from behind had approximately $30,000 in medical bills. Admissible into evidence was that she had health insurance which had paid the bills. Under the contract that the insurance company had with the health care providers, they accepted $10,000 for the services they provided. (If you don’t have health insurance which has such contracts, you pay the full $30,000.) The woman now had bulging discs in her back and pain everyday that she didn’t have before the wreck.

The jury found for the defendant, that he was not negligent. One of the lawyers talked to the jury afterward and the juror said, “Too bad that young man didn’t have insurance to pay for the damage.” The lawyer told the juror that the young man did have insurance, but under the law in Alabama he could not put that evidence before the jury or ask any question about insurance coverage. The juror suddenly had a look of shock on their face. Had the jury known there was insurance, instead of thinking about wanting not to “hurt” that nice young man who was at the beginning of his life and didn’t have much compared to the women who was hit, they would have found him negligent because he indeed was negligent.

So, despite Alabama’s mandatory liability insurance coverage law which requires every driver to have liability insurance, § 32-7-6(c) Ala. Code (1975), the jury assumed because there was not any evidence presented that he did have insurance that any judgment in the case would be paid by him. They decided he didn’t have the money to pay, so they found in his favor.

So, health insurance premiums went up, because the money paid by the women’s insurance company was not repaid by the young man’s insurance for the injury he caused. The woman now lives everyday in pain, because she stopped and the young man didn’t stop. She will have future care and medical bills, co-pays, prescriptions for pain relief, and all the rest, but she now bears that expense instead of it being paid for her future care by young man’s insurance company. The only people helped by finding against the woman was the insurance company and it’s shareholders unjustly making money at her expense. That’s why they tried the case. They thought they could pull a fast one on the woman and the jury. That’s why the insurance company did not settle the case. The insurance company got away with it.

So, the next time you wonder during a trial, “Does the defendant have insurance?” in a motor vehicle accident case, the answer is “YES.” Do your duty and find against the defendant if he was negligent. (Of course, if he was not negligent, you should not find he was negligent.) The reason there is insurance and the reason Alabama requires it is to pay a judgment when the driver is at fault for causing a wreck.

I cover this as well as many other things that you probably don’t know in my book, The Seven Deadly Sins that can Wreck Your Alabama Injury Claim. You can order a free copy by click on this link to the order form.

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Part of the danger to a child is they can’t see that well wearing a mask. Some of the costumes also meant that you could not be seen that well, too. We, the trick or treaters, had on our minds getting to as many houses as we could so that we could get more candy. We weren’t thinking about could a driver see us.

The idea never entered our minds that just because we could see someone, it did not mean that the driver saw us! You see that same thing with people who ride bicycles at night without lights on them. They ride like they think everyone can see them. They could easily get hit, because a driver may not be able to see them.

We will “fall” back an hour early Sunday morning when the time changes at 2 A.M. to standard time in the Central Time Zone. Clocks will be set back an hour. However, drivers will take a longer time to make the adjustment. CNN reported in 2007 the study of Paul Fischbeck and David Gerard, both of Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh. They found that pedestrian per-mile risk jumps 186 percent from October to November, but then drops 21 percent in December. “It’s not the darkness itself, but the adjustment to earlier nighttime that’s the killer,” according to the professors.

In the meantime, children will be out tonight trick or treating. Besides candy, give them the gift of safety. Be extra careful when driving. Take precautions with them when they are out walking from house to house and crossing streets. Make sure their costumes have reflective material and things easily seen. Remember, too, that besides tonight, be especially careful when you drive these next few months. You have to adjust to an earlier nighttime and the chances of an accident are much high. Please give the gift of safety.

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First, they cover that speeding is a factor in 35% of crash deaths involving young drivers. If you look back at some of my posts you see that speeding was a factor. Second, is cell phone use which in teens increases the crash risk by 300%. I recently represented someone whose spouse was killed by a driver talking on their cell phone. It does happen with both teens and adults talking on their cell phones. Third, Reader’s Digest points out that adding one passenger increases the fatal crash risk by 48% with teenagers. Fourth,adding a second passenger increases the fatality risk by 158%. Fifth, 87% of teen deaths involve distracted drivers; radios rank as a top teen distraction. Sixth, the article points out that eating at the wheel causes 2% of teen crashes. Seventh, nearly half of teens are sleep-deprived, and young drivers cause 55% of fatigue-related crashes. I wrote about a recent tragedy that occurred due to sleep deprivation. Eighth, teens are three times more likely to die in a crash at night when its dark than during the day.

Please discuss this post and my last post with your teenager and take a look at Reader’s Digest’s related articles on teen driving. We all looked forward to getting our driver’s license when we were teenagers. We all want them to come home safely after they have been out driving.

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Nearly half the teen deaths occur at night between the hours of 8:00 P.M. and 4:00 A.M. the article points out. In Alabama we are the fourth highest in the teen death toll. These are fatal accidents that can be prevented.

Speed, distraction, and driver inexperience cause most crashes-and those things can be controlled. “These deaths should not be considered an inevitable part of the teen experience,” says Justin McNaull, director of state relations for AAA. “We can change this.” Here are three steps that will prevent crashes and save countless lives — of teens and others on the road.

1. TEACH YOUR KIDS
Part of the reason for teens’ poor judgment is hardwired: The brain’s prefrontal cortex-which handles tasks like controlling impulses-isn’t fully formed. “Our brains get tons of input from multiple places,” says Flaura Winston, MD, scientific director of the Center for Injury Research and Prevention at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia. “Adults don’t act on all those impulses; we sort them. But teens have a hard time doing this.” And they have a hard time understanding what’s risky in a car. In a recent study, researchers surveyed 5,600 teens and found huge gaps in their knowledge.

One problem is that teens fail to see certain behaviors as dangerous. Only 28 percent said using a cell phone is a risk, and 10 percent said the same about having other teens in the car. (They’re both big distractions, and boys in the car are more distracting than girls.) Only half cited speeding or not wearing a seat belt. Even if teens got the right idea about a behavior-for instance, 87 percent said drinking and driving is dangerous-they didn’t view it as their problem: Only 16 percent said they ever see it happen. (Some might be lying; 25 percent of young drivers killed in crashes had been drinking.)

The message for parents: Spell out the dangers for your kids. It’s up to you because only 20 percent of schools offer driver ed today, down from 90 percent in the 1980s. Nason says, “You have a responsibility to make sure your child isn’t going to drive into someone else head-on because he’s busy chatting on his cell phone and nobody’s told him, ‘Hang up the phone and drive the car.’ ”

The article has two other suggestions, stricter state laws and getting tough at home. Everyone is responsible for driver safety. Protect your loved ones and others.

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Be safe and be careful. Remember to be especially careful if you are shooting off fireworks or around them.

I’m thankful for the wonderful opportunities that I have as an American. Let’s remember the principles upon which this great country was founded. Happy 4th of July!

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