2011 May Archive

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.