TxDOT has launched a new system where you can purchase a copy of the police report for your Houston injury accident online. TxDOT posts crash reports to its system once it receives them from law enforcement agencies. Then with a credit card and certain information about your specific accident, you can pay the $6 to $8 fee and download your report immediately. The police report could help you establish fault by another party when you are making a claim for insurance and compensation after a crash.
Previously, you had to mail in your request with payment to obtain a police report. And the delay caused by the mailings meant days or weeks before you might receive the actual report you needed. But our concerned Houston crash injury lawyers at Denena Points, PC have always made it our mission to aid accident victims and their families in achieving the fair financial recovery they deserve after a serious accident injury changes their lives. In pursuit of that mission, our Board Certified Texas personal injury attorneys have been offering to provide the police report you need free of charge. We still provide that service when you need it.
Just call us at 713-807-9500 or fill out our handy online request form. We understand that the last thing you need after suffering a serious accident injury or loss is one more additional cost, even a small one.
Data from the U.S. NHTSA website shows that about 85% of all rollover accident deaths are from single-vehicle wrecks. Our Texas highway rollover accident attorneys also point out that more than 90% of the vehicles involved in single-vehicle rollover fatalities were engaged in routine driving maneuvers like negotiating a curve or traveling in a straight line at the times of their crashes. This means that other factors like driver fatigue, distraction, speed, or impairment strongly contributed to the wrecks. Four of the major causes of rollover accidents that you want to avoid are:
SPEEDING: 40% of rollover crash deaths are related to excessive speed, and around 75% of the fatalities occur on roads where the posted speed limit is at least 55 mph. When the wheels of your car start to lose traction and leave the road, or they dig in and slide as the car changes direction, the faster you are going, the more likely it is that ESC technology and your own reactions won’t be able to compensate, and your vehicle will trip into a deadly roll.
ALCOHOL: About half of all fatal rollover wrecks involve alcohol. Impaired drivers tend to speed more often than sober drivers, and are also more likely to lose control of their vehicles in even routine driving maneuvers.
ROAD TYPE: Undivided rural roads and narrow roads without barriers form the sites of a disproportionate number of deadly rollover crashes. Nearly 75% of rollover deaths occur on narrow rural highways where the posted speed limit is 55 mph or above.
VEHICLE TYPE: “Top heavy” vehicles that have a higher center of gravity on a relatively narrow wheelbase, such as SUVs, pickup trucks, and passenger vans, are more likely to end up in a roll during a serious crash. The Texas highway rollover accident attorneys at Denena Points, PC note that a loss of vehicle control or a sharp change in direction can simply pull the vehicles “head over heels” into a roll.
Click the link to read about a deadly rollover wreck on LBJ Freeway in Dallas near Greenville that exhibits many of the factors listed above. That terrible accident claimed the lives of two occupants of a pickup truck who got ejected during the roll. Witnesses indicated the driver was traveling at least 100 mph and was negotiating the curve of a freeway entry ramp when the terrible single vehicle crash took place.
Serious Houston crash injuries can permanently change your life and the lives of your loved ones. Electronic Stability Control (ESC) can help you avoid a severe accident. ESC helps you avoid crash injury. It’s designed to keep you from plowing out if your front wheels lose traction or from spinning out if your back wheels lose traction with the road. If you lose control of your vehicle as tires lose traction, you might easily leave the roadway or slide across the median or centerline to end up with costly, maybe even permanent injuries.
ESC is designed to selectively apply the brakes on individual wheels to keep your car traveling in the intended direction when ESC sensors detect that tires are beginning to reach the limits of road traction and the vehicle is beginning to slide off course and potentially launch you into serious Houston crash injuries.
Taking curves at too high of a speed or engaging in sudden evasive maneuvers can test the limits of your car’s road traction. Countersteering can help you maintain control of the vehicle in such an event, but most people don’t think of that as they’re panicking in reaction to an imminent crash.
ESC can help countersteer for you. For instance, when ESC detects that the left rear of your vehicle begins to slide and that your car is changing direction too quickly for your intended course, ESC can selectively apply the right front brake to bring the car back on track. But ESC has its limits and can’t compensate if you’re speeding too fast or your oversteering is too extreme.
Around half of all vehicle accidents are single-vehicle crashes where the driver has lost control of the car for some reason. Your vehicle might leave the road because:
When drivers find themselves leaving the road, they often overcorrect when they try to get back on course, and this leads to a wreck, often a serious rollover. The end result might be vehicle ejection, severe head trauma, spinal injuries and paralysis, deep lacerations, broken bones, internal organ injuries, burns, or even severed limbs. Unfortunately, such severe accidents happen every day, leaving victims permanently disabled and families mourning for lost loved ones.
Learn what to do to protect your interests and your loved ones after serious Houston crash injuries: download our free report at the book icon on this page. The guide will help you understand how to build a successful claim for the financial recovery you deserve after a traumatic accident.
And don’t hesitate to contact the experienced Houston crash injury attorneys at Denena Points, PC if you have questions about your specific accident injury. We offer a free initial legal consultation to discuss your case and help you evaluate your potential for fair financial compensation. Call us at 713-807-9500 or reach us through our online contact form to get your free consultation.
Side curtain airbags are designed to deploy when your vehicle detects an imminent rollover crash. The NHTSA mentions that your car’s rollover sensing system might trigger the response when the roll angle is quite small and the tires are all still in contact with the ground. The Houston rollover injury lawyers at Denena Points, PC note that these airbags typically deploy in conjunction with safety belt retractors that are designed to remove any slack from your seatbelt restraints and to hold you more securely in your seat.
The side impact airbags to protect your head generally deploy downward, like a curtain dropping, from an overhead roof rail by the side windows. Because those side curtain airbags exist to protect you in the event of a rollover, they’re also designed to stay inflated longer than other airbags, so that they’re still in place to cushion your head as the vehicle rolls and you get thrown towards the side or roof of the vehicle.
The other advantage of these airbags is that they can, especially when you’re wearing your seatbelt, help prevent you from being thrown out of the vehicle as it rolls. Our Houston rollover injury lawyers caution that vehicle ejection is the source of most severe injuries and deaths from rollover wrecks. People ejected from their vehicles during crashes suffer fatal injuries about 75% of the time, so safety devices that help you remain inside the protection of your car or light truck during a wreck provide a distinct benefit.
But not all side impact airbags to protect your head are designed as rollover protection. Some are designed more with T-bone and sideswipe crashes in mind. These airbags would usually already have deflated again by the time you hit the worst part of a rollover. So when you’re considering buying a vehicle, our Houston rollover injury lawyers urge you to find out what type of airbags you have and what they’re designed to do. You could check with dealers and automakers to find out which of their products offer side curtain airbags that will deploy as rollover airbags.
Learn more about what you can do in the event of a serious wreck: download our free report.
Side impact, or T-bone, collisions cause more injuries and fatalities than other types of vehicle wrecks because the side “crush zones” are smaller than the front and rear crush zones. Crush zones are the areas between the outside of your vehicle and the inside of the passenger compartment. Vehicle designers generally try to extend the crush zones where they can because it lengthens your ride-down time in a crash, which reduces your chances of severe injury or death.
Because of the smaller side crush zones, T-bone crashes are 3 times more likely to cause traumatic brain injuries than other types of wrecks. The Pearland car accident attorneys at Denena Points, PC emphasize that approximately 60% of victims injured in side impact crashes receive traumatic brain injuries. And the severity of high-speed side impact crashes also frequently results in broken bones, spinal injuries, and paralysis. Around 10,000 people die in side impact crashes each year in the United States. This number represents about one third of all fatal U.S. road accidents annually.
Safety advocates praise side airbags for their effectiveness in preventing injuries and deaths in side impact collisions and in rollover wrecks. During a rollover, side airbags can help keep the occupants inside their vehicle, which reduces their risk of vehicle ejection and death. Our Pearland car accident attorneys note that about 75% of vehicle ejections during a crash end in fatal injury.
But standard airbag design doesn’t fully protect everyone. Standard airbag designs don’t always protect: children, senior citizens in “out of position” postures due to pain or medical conditions, and adults less than 5 feet tall or weighing 100 pounds or less. And sometimes vehicle defects, like one that just led to a major GM recall, mean that airbags won’t deploy at all, increasing your risks in a wreck.
Side impact crashes are frequent at intersections and might be caused by a driver who’s run a red light or a stop sign, or by a drunken or distracted driver. The negligent driver often is speeding as well, which adds to the severity of the T-bone collision.
If a negligent driver has hurt you or someone that you know in a side impact collision, you may be able to claim financial compensation for your injuries and the needless harm you’ve suffered. Contact the Board Certified Pearland car accident attorneys at Denena Points, PC to learn how.
Our experienced Pearland car accident attorneys offer a free, no obligation initial legal consultation to evaluate your case and answer the pressing questions you may have. Call us today at 713-807-9500 or just fill out our simple online contact form to schedule your free consultation and begin the process of financial recovery after a serious accident.
When we think about car accidents and how to avoid them we usually have in mind the possibility of a crash with another vehicle. But our Board Certified Houston car accident injury attorneys point out that around one third of all wrecks, and one half of fatalities, might involve only a single vehicle.
An NHTSA extract from the U.S. FARS (Fatality Analysis Reporting System) data shows that in 2012, Texas had 3,398 traffic fatalities. 1,880 of those deaths, or more than half, occurred in single vehicle accidents. Another NHTSA report discusses the large proportion of single-vehicle accident fatalities caused by running off the road and crashing. Some of the most common factors found to be behind these wrecks were: speeding, driver fatigue, DWI, adverse weather, and curves in the road. (Factors Related to Fatal Single-Vehicle Run-Off-Road Crashes, NHTSA, November 2009)
Another study by the NHTSA of crash causes focused on 5,471 wrecks nationwide. Of those accidents, 1,444, or 30.8%, were single-vehicle crashes. The factors behind these wrecks included distracted driving and poor driver decision-making. (National Motor Vehicle Crash Causation Survey, Report to Congress, NHTSA, July 2008)
A Houston Chronicle report noted that in just one night, four people died in single-vehicle accidents in the Houston area alone. (Dale Lezon, Houston Chronicle, 2/14/14) One man hit a curb on his motorcycle and was fatally ejected from the bike. Another driver lost control of a vehicle at high speed while driving over some railroad tracks. Both he and his passenger were killed when they crashed into a concrete culvert. And another man died when he suddenly veered from the road and landed in a ditch. Investigators speculated that a medical condition might have led the man to go off the road. Our deepest sympathies are with the families and friends of the four victims of these tragic single-vehicle wrecks.
Some single-vehicle accidents are caused by inherent defects in the car. And if you’re injured or your loved one dies because of that flaw, our Board Certified Houston car accident injury attorneys note that you have recourse against the manufacturer in a lawsuit.
But as the NHTSA reports and the four overnight accidents around Houston reveal, many single-vehicle accidents result from driver error, driver impairment, speeding, medical conditions, road design, or weather conditions. If you’re injured in a wreck resulting from these factors and you were the driver, it might be tougher to hold someone else financially liable for your injuries.
We offer a FREE, no obligation initial legal consultation to discuss the facts of your case and evaluate your potential eligibility for a full financial recovery. Call us at 713-807-9500 or fill out our online contact form to schedule your free consultation. Put our more than 12 years of experience successfully resolving complex personal injury and wrongful deaths cases to work for your family’s benefit.
A recent article mentioned that child crash injuries and fatalities had decreased by around 45% over the last 10 to 15 years. Authorities attribute the substantial decline in serious injuries and deaths largely to the increased usage of proper child safety restraint systems like car seats and booster seats.
But many parents still find these essential child safety devices complicated and difficult to install (because they are). If your vehicle has a LATCH (Lower Anchors and Tethers for CHildren) system in the car, it is often easier to attach a car seat with the LATCH than to the seat belt system. Our Pearland car accident injury attorneys caution that LATCH systems usually aren’t in place for the middle seating position, so you will need to choose on which side of the vehicle to install the car seat.
The lower anchors on the LATCH system can be used to attach and install the car seat, while the upper tethers improve safety and stability. The upper tethers should always be used when installing forward-facing car seats, even when you’ve also attached the child’s car seat to the seat belt. The Pearland car accident injury attorneys at Denena Points, PC urge you to read the owner’s manual for your vehicle and also the manufacturer’s instructions for the car seat to learn the correct weight limits for upper tethers and lower anchors.
In vehicles with LATCH systems (which includes almost all passenger vehicles manufactured September 2002 or later), the anchors can be found in the back seat at the juncture of the seat cushions. Upper tethers are generally found behind the seat on the panel behind the seat (for sedans) or on the back of the seat, ceiling, or car floor (for SUVs, minivans, and hatchbacks). Child safety seats made in September 2002 or later will have attachments specifically designed to fasten to LATCH anchors.
If you attach your child’s safety seat to the seatbelt, you might need to use a locking clip to keep it in place. Check your vehicle owner’s manual and the manufacturer’s instructions for the car seat to be sure. You may also need to fully extend the seat belt and let it retract to ensure that the belt fits tightly around the car seat. Your car seat might have built in lock offs to lock the seat belt in place.
If you have trouble installing a child safety seat correctly, a trained child passenger safety (CPS) technician could help you. You can find CPS technicians at some car dealerships and at certain auto safety events. And the Internet is always a useful place to start these days when looking for information for your area.
And if you need help after a serious crash injury has harmed you or your child, don’t hesitate to contact the Board Certified Pearland car accident injury attorneys at Denena Points, PC for a free initial legal consultation at 713-807-9500 or by filling out our online contact form. You can get started finding some of the information you need about what to do after the wreck by downloading our free guide at the book icon on this web page.
The NHTSA first informed the U.S. Congress in 2004 that better protection of children from side impact collisions was a priority. But little has been done since then to work towards that goal.
Last week, the NHTSA took up the safety banner again, and proposed rules that would require children’s car seats to withstand T-bone collisions of up to 30 mph. Our Houston car accident injury lawyers note that compliance with the new rules is expected to save at least 5 children’s lives each year and spare at least another 65 serious injury.
To test the ability of the car seat to withstand such impacts, manufacturers will have to simulate crashes where the front of a vehicle traveling at 30 mph strikes the side of a vehicle traveling at 15 mph. And the tests are supposed to use 40-pound crash test dummies that simulate the mass of a 3-year-old.
While T-bone collisions aren’t as frequent as frontal impact crashes or rear end wrecks (the most frequent type of accident), side impact crashes actually account for about 1 in 4 collisions. Drivers, especially those who are speeding and/or drunk, run red lights and stop signs with alarming frequency. The Houston car accident injury lawyers at Denena Points, PC realize that it’s usually the vehicle with legal right-of-way that gets T-boned in the intersection.
Manufacturers tend to balk in the face of additional regulations because it adds new costs to the manufacturing and R&D processes, as well as to the final product. But at least one car seat manufacturer, Dorel, has been working on developing enhanced side impact protection since the NHTSA’s alert to Congress in 2004. For example, some of their child safety seats feature air pockets that help cushion a child’s head during a crash, and hexagonal holes in the foam padding to deflect energy from the impact. (Michelle Sokol, The Republic, by way of the Houston Chronicle, 2/7/14)
These new features help extend a child’s “ride-down time” in a wreck. Each fraction of a second of additional ride down time can help reduce the chances of severe injury or death from crash forces.
The comment period for the proposed rule before it gets finalized is 90 days. In another three months, parents and safety advocates will have a better idea of the final rule regarding better child safety seats. Click the link to learn more about how to keep your young child safer in a car seat now.
If a person lets someone else drive their vehicle and that person causes a Houston, TX car wreck and injuries, the person who owned the car could be financially liable for the costs of the accident even if they weren’t in the car at the time. This is called “negligent entrustment.” And our Houston car crash injury attorneys suggest that you should consider its ramifications before entrusting your vehicle to a ne’er do well friend, exuberant teenager, unlicensed driver, or other potential liability issue.
As an example, on Wednesday morning in Houston on W. Bellfort near S, Gessner, a driver entrusted with a vehicle crashed through the window of a blood plasma center in SW Houston. The car owner was waiting there inside to give blood at the time. Apparently the car owner’s friend had taken a trip to the store, returned, and was trying to park the vehicle again in front of the center when she stepped on the accelerator pedal instead of the brake. Two people were hospitalized with injuries from the crash. The car owner/blood donor’s children were in the car at the time and evidently shaken by the experience. (Malini Basu, KHOU, 2/5/14)
The car owner indicated she didn’t leave her friend behind the wheel, and didn’t expect her to drive. Nonetheless, one must consider when entrusting a car and one’s children to an adult, whether properly licensed or not, that the adult may choose to drive.
When you exit a vehicle, take your keys with you. Given that current weather is such that people may not want to wait outside in a car that’s not running, have them wait inside with you. Blood plasma donation centers generally have waiting rooms just for such purpose. And to leave a friend who might choose to drive in one’s car with the keys and one’s children when other alternatives are available could well be considered reckless and an incident of negligent entrustment.
Contact the Houston car crash injury attorneys at Denena Points, PC to learn more about your available legal options and potential eligibility for a full financial recovery of you’ve been injured by a driver negligently entrusted with a vehicle. We’re available at 713-907-9500. Or schedule your free initial legal consultation by filling out our simple online contact form.
The IIHS (insurance institute for Highway Safety) just released the results of its crash test of sub-compact cars. One of the IIHS’s new tests is actually more difficult than the government crash tests for cars to pass. That new test is the small overlap front crash test, designed to simulate the conditions of a front-corner crash, which can result in particularly severe injuries to drivers. In a front-corner crash, the impact bypasses most of the frontal crush zones designed to absorb some of the impact. So the passenger compartment takes a greater amount of the force of the crash and can buckle and collapse, severely injuring or killing a driver. Click the link to read our FAQ response about impact forces in a crash and how they affect your risk of injury.
Tests were conducted using 40 mph crashes, considerably less than the highway speeds at which many real-life crashes occur. The IIHS vehicle-to-vehicle crash test matched the subcompact cars against midsize cars, rather than against much heavier SUVs or light trucks. But even against the next vehicle size up, the subcompacts fared poorly. Of the 11 subcompact cars tested by the IIHS, only the Chevy Spark passed the test. The Chevy Spark received an “Acceptable” rating. The other 10 cars failed with ratings from “Marginal” to “Poor.” None of them could achieve the safety rating of “Good.” The Honda Fit and the Fiat 500 received the worst ratings.
The subcompact class was reportedly the worst –performing vehicle group so far evaluated for crash safety by the IIHS. Even in the Chevy Spark, the vehicle structure on the subcompacts came apart in the crash test. We note that when the vehicle structure fails in a crash, this greatly increases your risk of serious injury or death.
But other safety features besides the structures of the subcompact cars failed the test as well. Seatbelts failed to adequately restrain the crash test dummies in 7 of the 11 cars tested. And there were problems with the airbags in 9 of the 11 cars. In one of those vehicles, the airbag failed to deploy entirely. In others, the dummies’ heads missed the airbag and hit the instrument panel instead.
The physics and the kinetic energies of the crash situations are the bottom line. The kinetic energy of a vehicle in a crash is determined by its mass and velocity. Larger, heavier vehicles have more mass and therefore have more kinetic energy than a subcompact car, even if they’re going the exact same speed in a crash. The energy is indeed kinetic, and transfers itself onto the smaller vehicle and its occupants in the impact. And with the smaller crumple zones of the smaller vehicles, their occupants suffer the most from a crash. Size and weight do matter.