Texas Personal Injury Law Blog

Using a life jacket or other personal flotation device (PFD) may save your life in the case of a boating accident in Texas. Choosing the right PFD for each person and for the water conditions is especially important, since size, fit, and type do matter. In order to help keep your family safe during summer fun in the water, the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department Offers several tips to purchasing the right life jackets for your family.

In order to work properly, a wearable PFD must fit the person wearing it. To test the fit of a PFD, put it on and attach all the fastenings properly, adjusting them so that the PFD is snug around your torso. Once the PFD is on and snug, have someone else pull upwards on the shoulders of the PFD. If it fits properly, the top of the shoulders will not reach the bottom of your ears, and the jacket will fit snugly around your torso. It’s best to try on a PFD before buying it to ensure that it fits properly.

Texas law requires children ages 13 and younger to wear a PFD at all times when they are on a motorboat less than 26 feet long. All boats under 16 feet long should carry a Type I, II, III, or V PFD for each person on board. If the boat is over 16 feet long, it should also have at least one Type IV, or “throwable,” PFD that’s easily available. Canoes and kayaks, however, do not have to have a Type IV PFD on board.

A boating accident can quickly turn a summer day’s fun into tragedy. When an accident occurs, it can be difficult to figure out who was responsible for the accident or what your rights are under Texas law. An experienced Texas boat accident lawyer can help you make sense of what happened and seek compensation if someone else’s negligence or carelessness caused an injury.

The U.S. Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) not only keeps track of all railroad-related accidents in the United States each year, but it also makes this information available on the Internet for those who want to know more about railroad safety.

In 2010, according to the FRA, Texas saw 803 accidents. This number includes accidents involving only a moving train, accidents involving both a train and a motor vehicle or motorcycle, and accidents that occurred in rail yards and similar areas in which trains are stored or fixed. Of these 803 accidents, 53 of them resulted in the death of at least one person. Twenty-seven of these people were killed when a train collided with a motor vehicle.

According to the FRA, human error – either by engineers, workers, or motorists – caused one-third of the railroad accidents in Texas in 2010. Fully forty percent of the accidents were caused by defective track, while another eighteen percent were caused by defective equipment, including defective signals at railroad crossings.

These numbers indicate that it’s important for Texas residents who have suffered injury in a train accident to consider all the possible causes of the accident and all the different people or companies that may have played a role in the crash. While it’s easy to see a defective signal at a railroad crossing, for instance, it’s not always obvious that a train also had a defective brake part that prevented it from stopping or slowing in time to prevent a crash. Most experienced Texas railroad accident lawyers are familiar with the many ways in which a train accident can occur and are willing to examine a railroad accident carefully to determine what happened and who may be responsible.

A Fort Worth School District school bus and a passenger car collided in east Fort Worth recently, leaving six of the bus’s passengers injured, according to an article in the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. According to police, the school bus had just finished picking up students and was heading for William James Middle School when it collided with a car at Canton Street and Greenlee Drive. Police have not yet said what caused the accident.

The school bus was carrying approximately thirty students when the crash occurred. Rescue workers took six of the children to Cook Children’s Medical Center for treatment of their injuries. One adult involved in the Fort Worth bus accident was also taken to the hospital. All of the people who suffered injuries in the accident are expected to make a complete recovery.

School bus accidents make up only about 0.34 percent of traffic accidents in the U.S. each year, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA). While 19 people, on average, die each year in school bus accidents, most of them are pedestrians who are accidentally struck by school buses, rather than passengers on the bus.

It doesn’t matter how rare school bus accidents are, however, if you or your child is the one injured in an accident. Texas residents who are injured in accidents have certain legal rights, including the right to seek compensation from anyone whose negligence may have caused the accident. An experienced Fort Worth bus accident attorney can help you understand your options and take the next step after an accident.

According to the Bicycle Almanac, available at bicycleuniverse.info, bicycle accidents are under-reported. Most police departments, including many in Texas, do not fill out a report if no one is severely injured or if the vehicle involved in the accident isn’t damaged enough to require a tow truck. The statistics that are available, however, indicate that bicyclists face the risk of an accident whenever they take to city streets.

For instance, a study conducted in New York in 1999 found that in as many as 92 percent of car-bicycle accidents, the driver of the car was at fault. More than half of the crashes occurred because a driver failed to follow traffic laws. Of these accidents, 23 percent were caused by drivers who passed a bicyclist too aggressively or unsafely. Another 15 percent involved a driver who turned into the path of a bicyclist who could not stop in time, 14 percent were speeding, and 10 percent failed to stop at a red light or stop sign.

A handful of cases involved drivers who were intoxicated or did not have a valid driver’s license, but most drivers who caused car-bicycle crashes were both sober and properly licensed. Even drivers who were obeying traffic laws were sometimes involved in bicycle accidents because they were not paying attention to their surroundings and failed to see a bicyclist until it was too late to stop or swerve.

Texas bicyclists injured in a bicycle accident should always seek medical attention for their injuries as soon as possible after an accident. Once the bicyclist’s injuries have been treated, the bicyclist would be wise to seek the help of an experienced Dallas bicycle accident attorney, who can help the injured cyclist understand his legal rights and seek compensation if appropriate.

Source:http://bicycleuniverse.info/transpo/almanac-safety.html , http://rightofway.org/research/cyclists.pdf

A pre-nursing student at the University of Texas at Arlington was struck by a car recently as she walked through campus. She now faces several months of rehabilitation and recovery from her injuries, according to the student newspaper The Shorthorn. The driver of the SUV that hit the young woman was arrested on suspicion of driving while intoxicated, although he claims he was not drunk at the time. Nevertheless, the young woman’s family is considering pressing criminal charges against the driver.

Meanwhile, the injured woman is still being treated for her injuries at Harris Methodist Hospital. She suffered several fractures, including damage to her spinal vertebrae. After surgery to repair the fractures in her leg and hand, she was released from the hospital’s intensive care unit into a private hospital room. Even after she leaves the hospital, however, she faces a minimum of eight weeks of recovery, during which her ability to carry on her normal routine – including classes and taking care of her two children – will be limited.

Although Texas law provides some legal rights and options for injured pedestrians, many injured people find it overwhelming to exercise these rights on their own while also trying to recover from their injuries. That’s why the help of an experienced Texas pedestrian accident attorney can be invaluable.

When a pedestrian is injured by a negligent or reckless driver, the price the pedestrian pays often goes far beyond the costs of medical care for the injury. Severe injuries often require weeks or months of treatment, rehabilitation, and various kinds of therapy. Some injuries are so severe that the injured person is never fully restored to the condition she was in before the accident.

Texas’s BNSF Railway Company, headquartered in Fort Worth, stated it may appeal a $1.9 million jury verdict issued recently, according to an article in The Fort Worth Star-Telegram. The jury awarded the money to a former employee of the railroad company, who proved that his severe back injuries were caused by years of working as an engineer on the railroad.

The former BNSF engineer explained that the lack of ergonomically correct seats in BNSF’s locomotives took a toll on his health. The jury agreed that the improper seating caused severe spinal cord injuries, and that the injuries forced the former engineer to undergo multiple back surgeries and give up as many as ten years of his career, most of which would have been spent at BNSF’s peak pay rate for engineers. The jury award is based on its finding that BNSF’s negligence caused the engineer’s back and spinal cord injuries, which in turn forced him to give up his pay and retire early.

BNSF announced in a statement that it was considering an appeal of the jury verdict. The railroad company maintains that its locomotive seats did not cause its former employee’s spinal cord injuries. The company also claims that “numerous errors’ occurred during the trial, which it wishes to have an appeals court review.

When it comes to seeking compensation from an employer whose negligence caused your injuries, having an experienced Texas personal injury lawyer on your side is crucial. Choosing an attorney who can build a strong case and has courtroom experience representing the injured can go a long way toward winning the compensation you need after an injury.

Driving while distracted by your cell phone or other devices may be as dangerous as driving with a blood alcohol concentration that’s above the legal limit, according to a study released by the National Highway Traffic Safety Association.

NHTSA cites a study performed by the University of Utah, which found that talking on a cell phone while driving may be as dangerous as driving with a blood alcohol concentration of 0.08 percent – even if you’re using a hands-free device. Driving while texting on a cell phone may be even more dangerous, since texting takes the mind, the hands, and the eyes away from the task of driving and concentrates them on sending the text message instead.

If you or someone you love is involved in an accident with a distracted driver, the best first step is always to seek medical care for every person who may have been injured. Next, talking to an experienced Texas accident attorney can help you understand your legal rights and options after a distracted driving crash.

Although it may seem to take only seconds to send a text message or make a phone call, drivers who were distracted by their cell phones, conversations in the car, roadside attractions, or other matters caused over 5,000 deadly accidents in 2009 alone, according to NHTSA. In addition, nearly 448,000 people were injured in vehicle accidents that involved distracted drivers. Although drivers in their 30s were most likely to report having been distracted when a crash occurred, teenagers suffered the most deaths in accidents that involved distracted driving, making this a problem that involves all drivers.

Many freight train companies currently move locomotives around switching yards using remote controls, which allow workers to move several trains without requiring an engineer in each one. Soon, however, railroad companies may start using remote-controlled cargo trains to move freight across the country, according to a recent news report from KDFW.

Fort Worth is one of the few cities that currently has cargo trains moving across intersections without a driver in the locomotive itself, since the Burlington Northern Santa Fe line uses remote controls to move some trains, including those going through the Industrial Boulevard crossing in the downtown Fort Worth area. But several railroad companies, including the Burlington Northern Santa Fe, may be sending trains on longer trips without a driver as a means to cut costs.

The full scope of the safety issues involved with taking locomotive engineers out of cargo trains is not yet clear, however. The Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) estimates that freight trains run by remote control are involved in 25 percent more accidents than trains that have a human engineer. Some veteran engineers state that a person operating a train by remote control cannot deal with every possible issue the train might encounter, which could easily increase the rate of accidents.

Accidents which involve a freight train and a passenger vehicle or a pedestrian often cause severe injuries and deaths, since neither cars nor human bodies stand much chance against something as large as a locomotive. Railroad safety, therefore, should be a top priority for everyone who operates or travels on or near railroads. Texas citizens who are injured in a railroad accident should strongly consider consulting an experienced Texas railroad accident attorney, who can help them understand their rights and options under Texas law.

Summer is upon us, and for many Texans that means opening the backyard pool. However, the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) warns that pools can be dangerous for children. There are a few basic safety tips you can follow to keep your pool as safe as possible to prevent injuries from occurring this summer.

First, the AAP warns that if at all possible, you should not put a swimming pool in your yard until your kids are older than 5-years-old. If that’s not possible, with children younger than five, practice touch supervision, which means keeping the adult within an arm’s length of the child at all times.

Make sure to have a fence between your house and the pool that is at least four feet high around all sides of the pool. The pool should also be separated from any play areas of the ward. Make sure the gates on the fence close and latch automatically, and that the latches are higher than children can reach. Most children who drown in pools walk out of the house and fall into the pool. You may consider using an approved safety cover, but don’t use it in place of a fence. Have both, if possible.

Do not leave children alone in or near the pool, not even for a moment, regardless of whether your child knows how to swim. Keep rescue equipment by the pool. After the children are done swimming, remove all toys – sometimes children are tempted to reach for the toys and accidentally fall into a pool.

Backyard pools can be great in the summer as long as basic safety rules are followed. Unfortunately, Dallas premises liability attorneys know that some pool owners do not take even the most basic of precautions. If you or a family member has been injured in a pool accident, you may have a cause of action against the pool’s owner for your injuries.

The U.S. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) recently began offering a multi-pronged program to attempt to reduce the number of teens who die in car accidents each year. As part of the program, the NHTSA collects statistics on teen driving safety issues, including teen driver accidents and fatalities.

Car accidents are the number-one killer of teenagers in the U. S. Every year, approximately 5,000 teens lose their lives in car accidents. On average, about every hour during weekends and every two hours during weekdays, an American teen between the ages of 16 and 20 dies in a car accident, according to the NHTSA. Sadly, these numbers don’t even begin to consider the teens that are injured in car accidents but survive.

The NHTSA notes that the rate of death among teen drivers is high for two reasons: alcohol use and the failure to wear seat belts. About 25 percent of teenagers from ages 16 to 20 had a blood alcohol concentration (BAC) of 0.08 percent – the legal limit for adults – or higher when they were involved in a fatal car accident. Additionally, 58 percent of teens ages 16 to 20 who lost their lives in car crashes were not wearing seat belts at the time. The risk of death from not wearing a seat belt is highest among teenage males and those who live in rural areas, two groups that are among the least likely to buckle up.

Educating your teens about safe driving can help protect them while they’re on the road. Unfortunately, no one can force all drivers on the road to drive smart and safely. When an accident occurs, a Texas car accident lawyer can provide detailed advice on your legal rights and options.

Texas’s Parent Taught Driver Education Program, or PTDE Program, allows student drivers to learn driving skills from their parents, instead of from a general program offered by driver training schools or by the public schools. An evaluation of the PTDE by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, or NHTSA, however, found that parent-taught drivers are statistically more likely to commit traffic violations and to suffer more serious crashes than drivers who take a school course.

The NHTSA study reported a few benefits that come from the PTDE program. Parents and students who use the PTDE instead of a school program report several benefits, including lower cost and more personalized attention to the student driver. Also, according to the NHTSA study, PTDE students have fewer traffic violations or accidents while they are driving with a parent in the car to supervise them.

However, once the parents were no longer in the car with the students, the NHTSA study found that the numbers changed. Parent-taught drivers were far more likely to commit traffic violations than their conventionally-schooled counterparts were. Parent-taught drivers were also more likely to be involved in Texas car accidents, and the accidents they had were generally more serious, than the accidents their conventionally-schooled counterparts had. Although the NHTSA study itself did not express an opinion as to why parent-taught drivers had more tickets and accidents, the professional driver education teachers NHTSA interviewed as part of their study opinioned that parent-taught drivers fared worse because few parents have the training and experience to teach a comprehensive driver education course.

Safe driving helps reduce accidents, especially in traffic-heavy Texas cities. Unfortunately, many drivers find themselves in car accidents no matter how carefully they drive. When an accident occurs, an experienced Dallas car accident attorney can help you understand your legal options and protect your legal rights.

Lead poisoning occurs when the human body contains too much lead and it is especially harmful for children, whose developing brains can be permanently damaged by too much lead. Although lead poisoning has decreased n the U.S. in the last twenty years, instances of lead poisoning still occur. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention offer the following tips for keeping lead away from your family.

The most common source of lead poisoning is lead paint. Lead was banned in U.S. paints in 1978, but older houses may still have lead pain on their walls. This paint comes off over the years as dust, which may coat every surface in the house. If you suspect there may be lead paint in your house, have a professional test for lead and remove the paint if necessary.

If you can’t afford testing or paint removal, make sure there is no peeling paint or painted surfaces that your child can pull or chew on. If you’re pregnant or have young children, avoid entering buildings that are being renovated, since the renovation process can release lead paint dust into the air. Use a wet mop regularly to remove dust from your home’s floors, and use a wet cloth or sponge to wipe down walls and surfaces to remove dust. Wash children’s toys regularly, and teach children to wash their hands after playing with toys. Also, check the Consumer Product Safety Commission website http://www.cpsc.gov/ for recall notices, and do not let kids play with toys that have been recalled due to their lead content.

Many U.S.-made products must be lead-free, but that does not mean that you won’t find any products with lead. If you or a loved one is suffering from lead poisoning, and you suspect a household item is to blame, don’t hesitate to discuss the problem with an experienced Texas lead poisoning attorney. An attorney can help you figure out what happened and give you the information you need to understand and protect your family’s legal rights.

Nine members of the Trinity United Methodist Church in Denton, TX recently filed suit against the driver of their tour bus, which crashed on an icy Colorado road in December 2010 and caused them injuries. The suit also names the driver’s employer, a bus company located in Fort Worth, according to an article published in The Forth Worth Star-Telegram.

According to the church members, the bus driver is responsible for their injuries because he was driving too fast on icy roads when the bus accident occurred. The driver reportedly passed multiple cars and was traveling too fast for the ice on the roads and the snow and darkness that obscured the road ahead. The bus slid off the road near Gunnison, Colorado, where it rolled down a hill and struck a post. The driver was cited for speeding by Colorado police.

In addition, the nine injured church members claim that the driver failed to meet federal requirements while on the job. These included failing to keep track of the bus’s stops, including a meal break, and failing to use adaptive equipment while driving, even though the driver’s right foot had been partially amputated.

The nine church members who decided to sue the bus driver all suffered injuries in the December crash. The group includes four children, their parents, and another adult couple who were injured.

Bus accidents are dangerous to everyone involved. The large number of passengers a bus can hold, plus the bus’s size and weight, make a bus accident a prime scene for injuries. Often, injuries in a bus crash are severe, requiring expensive medical treatment and long-term care or rehabilitation. While most bus drivers take their safety responsibilities seriously, drivers who are reckless or distracted put everyone on the road at great risk. If you have been injured in a bus accident, an experienced Texas bus accident attorney can help you understand your legal rights and options, as well as help you seek compensation for injuries and related losses, if needed.

An SUV rear-ended an elementary school bus in Weatherford recently, according to an article in The Fort Worth Star-Telegram. The SUV’s driver and two children who were exiting the bus at the time of the accident were injured.

The bus had stopped along Fort Worth Highway to let children out when the SUV, driven by a Millsap woman and carrying her three children in the backseat, ran into the back of the bus. The collision pushed the bus forward about 15 to 20 feet, breaking glass in some of the bus’s windows. The bus driver immediately evacuated the 49 passengers aboard the bus, believing the vehicle was on fire after the Texas car crash.

The SUV’s driver was taken to John Peter Smith Hospital in Fort Worth after rescue crews removed her from the SUV, the front of which had gotten stuck under the front of the bus. The bus’s passengers and the three children in the SUV were sent home with their parents. The two injured children were taken to Weatherford Regional Medical Center as a precaution, but they were not seriously injured and were sent home with their parents shortly afterward. Police are still investigating the cause of the accident.

Bus and car accidents can cause life-threatening and permanent injuries. Those who are injured in accidents in Texas have certain legal rights. Consulting with an experienced Texas bus accident lawyer can help you understand your legal rights and options so you can make the best choices for yourself and your family after an accident occurs.

Immediately after a car crash in Texas, you may not feel as though you were injured. Many symptoms of an injury only appear after several hours or even days following an accident. Whiplash injuries, which are common in rear-end collisions and other types of car accidents, may take several days to show their true severity.

A whiplash injury, also known as a neck sprain or neck strain, is a soft tissue injury that occurs when the head and neck are thrown forward and jerked backward quickly, according to the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke. Moderate to severe whiplash injuries may also cause damage to the discs and joints in the spine, ligaments, muscles, and nerve roots in the neck.

The symptoms of a whiplash injury may appear immediately after an accident, or they may not appear for several days. Common symptoms include neck pain or stiffness, head pain, dizziness, and pain in the shoulders or upper back. Some patients also have cognitive injuries, such as suffering from memory loss, sleep disturbances, and an inability to concentrate.

Whiplash injuries should be treated as soon as possible after they materialize. Medications like non-steroidal anti-inflammatories, antidepressants, and muscle relaxants can help ease the pain and stiffness of a whiplash injury. Patients may also wear a cervical collar for a few days or weeks until the neck heals enough to support the weight of the head on its own. Physical therapy sessions may also be necessary to help speed recovery.

If you are in a car accident in Texas, it’s important to pay careful attention to your condition in the hours and days after the accident occurs. Even if you feel fine immediately after, you may still be injured. Seek the help of an experienced physician to treat your injuries, and consider talking to an experienced Texas car accident neck injury lawyer who understands whiplash injuries to learn more about your rights and options after a car crash.