As experienced New Orleans personal injury attorneys, we have seen the significant difference that simply wearing a seatbelt can make in a motor vehicle collision. Wearing a seatbelt can literally be a life or death decision. As a result, there has been a great push on both the state and national level to increase seatbelt use among motorists over the past several years. This month, the Louisiana Highway Safety Commission released the results of an observation study conducted in June and July regarding seatbelt use by drivers and front seat passengers. The study found that statewide, 77.7 percent of these individuals used seat belts. This number marked a return to the previous high mark set in 2005 and is the highest compliance rate since the annual study began 25 years ago. The compliance rate last year was 75.9 percent. Unfortunately, while vastly improved from the twelve percent seatbelt use rate…Read More
Automobile accidents are the cause of many personal injuries in the New Orleans area. While we are all concerned about making the roads safe for drivers and pedestrians, a recent report indicates that Louisiana’s metro areas may actually have taken a step backward this past year when it comes to reducing motor vehicle accidents. Every year, Allstate Insurance uses car insurance collision claims data gathered from the 200 largest U.S. cities to rank driver safety in each city. It publishes these rankings in its annual America’s Safest Drivers report. The report is published as an effort to educate people about driving safety in the hope that it will lead to a decrease in future automobile collisions. Three Louisiana metro areas are large enough to make the list: New Orleans, Baton Rouge and Shreveport. Unfortunately for people using the roads in these cities, none ranks particularly high in terms of safety,…Read More
Given the number of commercial trucks on the roads of New Orleans, it is inevitable that some drivers will violate the rules regarding when they can drive. Personal injury accidents caused by large trucks driven by fatigued drivers could be substantially reduced if all drivers would follow federal regulations regarding limiting hours on the road and necessary rest time. To help address the danger of driver fatigue, the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) issued a regulation in 2010 that required all commercial trucks operated by companies with poor work hour compliance records to be fitted with electronic devices that would automatically track when the truck was on the road. This device would replace the log book traditionally used by drivers to record their work hours. Log books rely upon drivers honestly recording their information and, as a result, are easily falsified. This new regulation was scheduled to take effect…Read More
Many people in New Orleans have been killed or badly injured in car accidents involving drunk drivers. Because of the threat these drivers pose, Louisiana law has made special provisions to protect individuals hurt in these accidents and impose additional penalties on drunk drivers. When a person is injured by a drunk driver, the injured party may pursue punitive damages against that driver. Punitive damages are damages awarded to the injured party above the amount granted as compensation for the cost of medical treatment, lost wages and pain and suffering. These additional damages are granted for the purpose of punishing the defendant and deterring similar conduct in the future. Injuries caused by drivers intoxicated or impaired by alcohol or drugs present one of the few cases in which punitive damages may be pursued in Louisiana. In most other cases of injury caused in a car accident, they cannot be pursued.…Read More
Rear-end collisions are among the more relatively “easy” matters handled by New Orleans auto injury attorneys. This is because in most motor vehicle accidents, the burden is on the plaintiff to prove that the other driver was negligent. This is not the case in rear-end collisions. Instead, the burden is placed on the party who struck the other vehicle from behind to prove that he or she was not negligent. Louisiana Revised Statute 32:81 requires drivers to not follow another vehicle more closely than is reasonable and prudent, with due regard both for the speed of such vehicle and for the traffic upon and condition of the highway. When a driver strikes another vehicle from behind, there is a legal presumption that the striking driver breached this duty. As a result, that driver also is presumed to be negligent. Essentially, in a rear-end collision, instead of the driver who was…Read More
We have all heard accounts of severe personal injury accidents in New Orleans involving drunk drivers. Such accidents tend to be viewed very seriously because they arise from preventable behavior and could have been avoided. While most people acknowledge the danger of drunk drivers, a recent study by demographers at the University of California, San Diego, has found that any amount of alcohol in a driver’s system increases not only the risk of an accident, but also its severity. Members of the university’s sociology department analyzed data from the Fatality Analysis Reporting System (FARS) database, which tracks every car accident in the U.S. involving at least one fatality. This data included accidents involving 1,495,667 people between 1994 and 2008. FARS data was used because it includes a measurement of the drivers’ blood-alcohol content measured in 0.01% increments and records accidents across the United States. Because FARS only tracks fatal accidents,…Read More
As experienced New Orleans personal injury attorneys, we have seen the results of many serious accidents caused by driver fatigue. Because of concerns about fatigue among drivers of large vehicles, the federal government has regulated the work hours for drivers of commercial motor vehicles used in interstate commerce for many years. Following multiple fatal tour bus accidents this year, members of the U.S. Senate are now calling upon the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration to apply the same rules to commercial bus drivers. The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration regulates both commercial truckers and bus drivers, but the regulations are not currently the same. In 2003, the Administration changed the required time-off hours between shifts for truck drivers from eight to ten hours. The bus industry lobbied against this change — arguing it would be financially detrimental to them — and was granted an exemption. Within a year after the…Read More
New Orleans drivers may continue to use their cell phones, and New Orleans personal injury attorneys may continue to seek damages from drivers who cause accidents because they were on the phone. Both of these issues were the subject of a bill recently rejected by the Louisiana House of Representatives. For years, efforts have been made in the Louisiana legislature to extend state limitations on cell phone use while driving. The current law bans the use of wireless devices, including cell phones, by drivers under the age of eighteen. The bill considered by the House of Representatives proposed that Louisiana join the growing number of states banning the use of hand-held cell phones by drivers of all ages. Use of hands free devices would have remained legal. Proponents of the bill presented statewide data that supported the danger of using a hand held cell phone while driving. The bill authorized…Read More
Accidents involving large commercial trucks can be some of the most devastating cases that New Orleans personal injury attorneys deal with. These large vehicles are capable of causing catastrophic personal injuries. Earlier this month, the National Transportation Safety Board held a forum involving representatives of the trucking industry, government regulators and safety advocates to discuss truck safety. Not surprisingly, there is a great deal of contention among these groups regarding what additional steps, if any, need to be taken to reduce the number of personal injury accidents involving commercial trucks. For example, because the number of fatal accidents involving large trucks has decreased from about 5,200 in 2005 to 3,200 in 2009, some members of the trucking industry argue that current regulations are working, and no additional steps need be taken. Many safety advocates, on the other hand, argue that this decrease in fatal accidents is related more to the…Read More
Personal injury accidents involving collisions with large trucks occur all-too frequently in the New Orleans area. One of the greatest hazards in such accidents is the possibility of a car sliding under the truck, leading to serious injury or death. A recent study by the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS) on the effectiveness of truck underride guards has found that additional steps need to be taken to protect motorists. When the nose of car slides underneath a truck during an automobile accident, the vehicle’s occupant compartment may impact the truck directly and take the brunt of the force from the collision. Underride guards hang down underneath the truck for the purpose of impacting the nose of a car during an accident, which should keep the car from sliding underneath. Following an analysis of data from 2001-2003, which demonstrated that underride was a common occurrence in cases where a car…Read More
