We all worry if we must place our elderly relatives in assisted living or in a nursing home environment. We usually do it as a last resort, when we can no longer take adequate care of our family members ourselves. We help choose our relatives’ new living places trusting that our loved ones will be safer there and receive better care than we could provide ourselves.
But that’s not always the case. As a recent altercation in a Harris County nursing home demonstrated, fellow residents or inadequate supervision or safety precautions could endanger our loved ones. At HMG Park Manor of Cypress Station on Monday, one male resident apparently attacked another one with an exercise weight, leaving the other man in critical condition.
The altercation was being investigated and no charges were immediately filed. An HCSO spokesman did not have information on whether the men were acquainted or might have been roommates. (Associated Press via newschannel10.com, 5/6/14)
The troubling attack indicates the need for greater caution, supervision, and safety precautions in elder environments. Our loved ones are not only at risk from the health problems that often accompany advancing age, but from unexpected confrontations that could result from advancing dementia in other residents.
At the law firm of Denena Points, PC, we dedicate our professional lives to helping injured victims and their families obtain the financial recoveries to which they’re entitled after the needless harm they suffered because of others’ negligence. Contact us for a free, no obligation initial legal consultation to learn your rights and options. Get in touch with us at 713-807-9500 or anytime through our online contact form. Let us help you recover.
On Wednesday afternoon at Clay Road and Greenhouse, 17 students from Cy-Fair I.S.D. barely avoided disaster when an SUV slammed into their school bus. The schoolchildren quickly evacuated the school bus after the wreck and were told to stay back by firefighters who thought the bus might catch fire or explode.
At least four students received transport to the hospital with injuries after the crash. The driver of the SUV suffered minor injuries. Authorities were still trying to determine which driver was at fault for the accident.
Our Houston school bus crash attorneys point out that this school bus collision, with its safe evacuation of students and lack of a post-crash fire, stands in marked contrast to the recent bus collision with a FedEx truck in California that tragically killed 10 victims and injured more than two dozen others.
Buses carry large amounts of fuel compared to cars and light trucks. And bus fuel tanks have shown an alarming tendency in numerous wrecks over the years to erupt in flames after a crash. Buses also have other drawbacks that create additional risks in serious accidents. They are difficult to evacuate. Windows are hard o open, and doors can be warped so that they won’t open. Few buses are equipped with seatbelts. And even on buses that have them, riders don’t always wear them. So when a crash occurs, riders are hurled around the bus and become seriously injured or disoriented, making it difficult for them to evacuate the bus.
Recognizing the particular dangers of bus crashes, the NHTSA has been working on recommendations for several years now that are designed to facilitate the safe and fast evacuation of buses and to provide extra crash impact protections for passengers. But the Houston school bus crash attorneys at Denena Points, PC emphasize that the NHTSA is also the agency in charge of ensuring car and light truck safety. The agency has its hands full just trying to conduct necessary investigations regarding passenger vehicle defects and issue appropriate recalls. And the NHTSA has been called on the carpet recently for not even doing an adequate job in that regard. So bus safety keeps getting pushed to the back burner.
Click the link to learn about another serious school transport crash that illustrates the dangers faced by riders.
TxDOT data shows a yearly increase of 5% in the number of motorcycle crash deaths in Texas. Accidents claimed the lives of 494 motorcyclists last year and 470 in 2012. 4,339 of the motorcycle accidents in our state last year involved at least one other vehicle.
And after a collision with a bike, drivers of larger vehicles typically say they never saw the motorcycle before the accident. The Houston motorcycle crash injury attorneys at Denena Points, PC mention that various research studies over the years that track driver’s eye movements, measure the gaps they leave for different types of approaching vehicles, and survey their reactions to traffic have shown that drivers of larger vehicles often lack perceptual awareness of approaching motorcycles, bicycles, or pedestrians.
Driving is a complex task, and drivers for their own safety try to be alert for vehicles their own size or larger into which they might crash. This sometimes leaves them without the extra conscious attention to spare for smaller vehicles or persons.
So TxDOT has launched a novel safety campaign designed to increase drivers’ awareness of motorcycles. The campaign includes a component taken from video games. Our Houston motorcycle crash injury attorneys note that video games have been shown to increase physical reflexes and reaction times among those who play them.
The TxDOT idea is apparently taken from a game called “Slug Bug.” Those who have played the game tend to show heightened awareness of Volkswagen Beetles on actual roadways even after they’ve stopped playing the game. So TxDOT’s new motorcycle safety campaign asks people to “look twice” and count the motorcycles they see on their drives in order to help heighten their awareness of the smaller vehicles. Children may enjoy this game (it offers a game sheet to download) and remain conditioned to noticing the presence of bikes when they begin driving themselves.
The campaign is called “Share the Road: Look Twice for Motorcycles” and starts in conjunction with National Motorcycle Safety Awareness Month in May. TxDOT has organized motorcycle processions and events around the state to help publicize the new campaign. The campaign asks all drivers to look twice for motorcycles, use signals when turning, and leave sufficient gaps in traffic for other vehicles, including bikes.
Our Houston motorcycle crash injury attorneys emphasize that research has shown that about 32% to 39% of fatal motorcycle crashes occur at intersections and involve cars or trucks turning in front of motorcyclists without leaving sufficient gaps for the bikes. The bikers don’t have enough time to stop or evade the larger vehicles and end up crashing into them.
Learn more about what to do after a serious motorcycle crash. Download your free guide from this web page.
In Texas, more than three times as many DUI crashes are fatal and nearly twice as many DUI wrecks cause serious injuries compared to other types of accidents. On rural roads, TxDOT statistics for 2012 show that only 1.59% of all accidents were fatal. Our Pearland car accident lawyers note that those wrecks claimed 1,892 lives. Where the crashes were alcohol-related, 5.88% of the wrecks on Texas rural roads claimed lives. 30.77% of DUI crashes, almost one third, caused serious injuries, while only 17.76% of all accidents resulted in serious injury.
In Texas urban areas, the proportions are similar. Only 0.44% of all crashes were fatal in 2012, but of the DUI wrecks, 2.69% were fatal. 23% of the alcohol-related wrecks resulted in serious injuries, compared to only 14.43% overall.
Higher speeds, dangerous head-on crashes, and wrong way driving account for much of the disproportionate toll taken on lives and limbs by DUI crashes. Drunken drivers are dangerous drivers with impaired judgment. They take greater risks with your lives and with their own. This is equally true of drivers impaired by drugs or a mixture of drugs and alcohol. It is the impairment that matters: impaired vision, reflexes, reaction times, decision-making abilities, and judgment make for a dangerous cocktail of deficiency behind the wheel.
Individuals react differently to alcohol and drugs. Some can drive normally when they’ve had a few drinks. Others began to veer into other lanes with only one drink under their belt. Know your limits.
DUI accidents are 100% avoidable. There are always alternatives to drinking and driving. If you know you’re going to be out drinking, plan for another way home. The Pearland car accident lawyers at Denena Points, PC urge you to bring a designated driver; take a cab; or take public transportation. But don’t drink or drug and drive. Seriously: the life you save might be your own. As the statistics prove, the consequences of a DUI crash can be especially deadly. Click the link to read about a horrific DUI crash that took a woman’s life.
Each year as the weather warms up and people begin to gather more frequently on outdoor terraces, decks, and balconies, we begin to see reports of structural collapses with multiple injuries. The deck collapse injury attorneys at Denena Points, PC note that most of the collapses occur on older decks from wear and deterioration. But occasionally they happen when they’re still under construction, sometimes due to inadequate temporary bracing or to piling building materials on the partially completed structure or its scaffolding.
Tuesday in Boca Raton, Florida, a construction crew was pouring concrete for a home under construction on Spanish River Road when the scaffolding above collapsed onto them. One of the construction workers received serious injuries and was rushed to a trauma center. Another worker received transport to a different hospital, and a third worker was treated on the scene.
Structural collapses like the one in Boca Raton frequently result in multiple serious injuries. Deck collapses can also be fatal. It’s important to get building permits, use proper building practices, and inspect completed decks thoroughly at least once per year to help prevent deck collapse and injury.
Learn more about what causes deck and balcony collapses, how to prevent them, and what to do after a sudden structural collapse. Download your free guide from our experienced deck collapse injury attorneys.
The Houston car accident injury attorneys at Denena Points, PC note that our roads are becoming more crowded as the population increases. And we’re all spending more and more of our time on the road as commute times lengthen. Unfortunately, that means that more frustrated drivers are losing their cool and taking out their road rage on other drivers, on passengers, and on bystanders.
Statistics from the U.S. NHTSA and an auto club reveal that:
Aggressive drivers might just have higher anger levels generally. But being on the road, semi-anonymous behind the wheel, provides an unfortunately convenient outlet for that anger. And our Board Certified Houston car accident injury attorneys caution that it just takes a distracted or inconsiderate driver to trigger that rage.
These angry drivers tend to speed more often, take greater risks on the road with your life and with their own, seek revenge against other drivers, weave in and out of other traffic at high sped, and tailgate. In simulation studies, they get more traffic tickets, have more near-misses on the road, and twice as many crashes as other drivers.
The actions of these angry and hostile drivers seem over the top to the rest of us. For instance, just recently in Houston after a minor fender bender accident, the driver of a Nissan threatened the elderly driver if the other vehicle. He reportedly said “You’ll be sorry you gave me your information. I’m going to find you and kill you and your family.” Then he physically attacked the man. The man’s son entered the fray to defend his father, and his defense proved fatal to the attacker. Click the link to learn more about road rage and what triggers it.
Last September’s avalanche of hundreds of new state laws included an expansion of the “Slow Down, Move Over” law relating to emergency vehicles. It was expanded to create fines if drivers didn’t slow down or move over as they passed active TxDOT work zones. Our Houston construction zone accident lawyers note that the law was apparently a reaction to the increased number of TxDOT workers being injured or killed in construction zone crashes due to careless or speeding drivers.
But 84% of those who die in work zone crashes are actually the careless drivers themselves. And a survey by the Associated General Contractors of America found that 45% of highway work zones had at least one crash occur there.
Just last year in Texas, 17,266 crashes in TxDOT work zones resulted in 115 deaths and 3,522 serious injuries. That doesn’t even begin to account for the myriad of other non-TxDOT work and construction zones that you probably see on your daily drive. In 2012, the FMCSA said that heavy trucks and buses alone contributed to 132 fatal wrecks in work zones. (Dug Begley, blog.chron.com, 4/8/14)
The Houston construction zone accident lawyers at Denena Points, PC understand that sudden slow-downs occur as vehicles reach construction zone bottlenecks. And that these sudden changes in traffic speed often result in distracted, fatigued, or drunken drivers continuing at speed and ramming into the vehicles in front of them. This sometimes forces vehicles off the road and into the workers in the zones. Then secondary wrecks occur as people try to avoid the first accident or rubberneck to get a better look.
TxDOT, federal transportation officials, and contractors all remind drivers to be alert as they enter construction zones. Slow down and drive carefully to avoid workers, cone barriers, and other obstacles, as well as the holes and pavement drop-offs relating to the construction.
All construction zone accidents and the 84% of driver fatalities that occur in these crashes are avoidable with a little extra care as you drive. Our Houston construction zone accident lawyers urge you to be aware and steer clear. Slow down and move over when you come to a work zone. It’s the law; but it’s also just good sense for your own safety. Click the link to read about a fiery fatal Houston truck wreck that may have been related to construction zone traffic dynamics.
Our Houston accident injury lawyers have repeatedly pointed out how Texas leads the nation every year in the number of deaths caused by drunken drivers. But the repeated warnings from us and from many others seem to have no effect. The deadly toll from Texas DWI crashes continues to rise.
For instance, early Sunday morning the drunken driver of a white GMC pickup truck slammed into a disabled vehicle and its passengers on North Sam Houston Parkway in Harris County. One of the passengers in the backseat of the disabled car was killed at the scene. Another woman in the backseat had to be transported to the hospital with serious injuries. The stalled car had its hazard lights, headlights, and parking lights on. One of the vehicle occupants was frantically trying to wave off the approaching pickup truck.
All to no avail. Sergio Sanchez, Jr., who is now indicating his desire to be let off with community service or probation after claiming the life of an innocent victim, rammed the disabled car in his inebriated state. We wish that we could say this was the only example we know of callous drunken drivers ending lives but expecting to continue their own lives without interruption or inconvenience.
Preliminary data from the Texas Transportation Institute (TTI), based out of Texas A&M University, indicates that Texas DWI deaths increased from 1,213 in 2011 to 1,296 in 2012 and then to 1,322 in 2013. 61% of these fatal drunken driving wrecks happened on the weekends between Friday afternoon and early Monday morning. TTI also mentioned that people 40 and over are responsible for about half of the Texas DWI fatalities. (Kris Betts, KVUE, by way of KENS TV, 4/12/14)
The next two states that tail Texas with high numbers of alcohol-related crash fatalities are California and Florida. Collectively, Texas and these other two states also have the three fastest-growing populations among the U.S. states. So it’s possible that the percentage of DWI wrecks in relation to the overall population has remained constant in our state over recent years even as actual fatality numbers have grown.
The Houston accident injury lawyers at Denena Points, PC make it their mission to aid innocent victims of needless accidents and to work to improve safety on our Texas roads. If you’ve witnessed or experienced a serious accident injury due to a drunk driver, let us know. We could help you get important witness information to the proper authorities. And our long-term experience providing able legal guidance to injured accident victims could help you understand your legal options after a crash as well as your potential eligibility for a financial recovery for the needless harm you’ve suffered.
Contact us for a free, no obligation initial legal consultation. We can be reached anytime through our online contact form. Or call us direct at 713-807-9500. Let us help you recover.
The horrific and deadly crash between a FedEx truck and a chartered bus carrying students in California last week has brought increased scrutiny to school transportation. Our Houston school bus accident attorneys note that the high school students and their chaperones were on a trip to a university to explore options for the students’ futures. It is deeply saddening that on a trip intended to prepare them for a better and brighter future, these individuals’ futures came to an abrupt halt.
Negligence on the part of drivers, vehicle maintenance personnel, and vehicle manufacturers who fail to equip vehicles with appropriate safety measures could all be at fault. And we should not forget the role of federal authorities that have long neglected to prioritize passenger bus safety, particularly in relation to the deadly fires that can erupt in a crash.
On the whole though, such horrific school trip accidents are rare. In terms of statistics, school buses provide the safest mode of ground transportation you can find. In contrast to the tragic California crash, most who die in school transport related accidents are pedestrians and occupants of other vehicles, not the occupants of the school vehicle.
And in the case of the California crash, the precise circumstances and causes of the collision are still in dispute. Early reports indicated that the FedEx truck swerved to avoid a sedan traveling in the same direction as the truck. The sharp evasive maneuver apparently sent the truck careening over the median to crash into the chartered motorcoach bus.
But the occupants of the sedan that might have cut off the truck were later reported as saying that they had been traveling in the opposite direction to the truck and that it was already on fire when it crossed the median and clipped them. The Houston school bus accident attorneys at Denena Points, PC emphasize that authorities have not yet found any evidence that the truck was on fire before the wreck. But the hulks of both the truck and the bus were practically reduced to cinders, so it might be hard to tell. Other witnesses and vehicle black boxes might be able to shed some light on the dispute.
Each year, approximately 6 school-age (1 through 18 years old) occupants of school transportation vehicles and 14 child pedestrians die as a result of school vehicle related wrecks. A school vehicle is a school bus or another type of vehicle functioning as a school bus (for instance, a large passenger van or a motorcoach bus).
A report issued by the NHTSA is 2009 listed 371,104 fatal motor vehicle crashes, an average of more than 37,000 per year (NHTSA Traffic Safety Facts, School Transportation-Related Crashes, 2009). School transportation related wrecks accounted for 1,245 of those deadly wrecks. Our Houston school bus accident attorneys report that 1,386 people died in those 1,245 tragic crashes, an average of 139 per year.
Only about 8% of the victims were actually inside the school vehicles though. About 20% were pedestrians. And about 71% were in the other vehicles involved in the collisions.
From 2000 to 2009, 85 crashes occurred where at least one occupant of a school transportation vehicle, a driver or a passenger, died. Almost 60% of the fatal accidents involved another vehicle. In 51% of those fatal crashes, our Houston school bus accident attorneys point out that the school vehicle was struck in the front, like the chartered bus in Orland, California.
73% of the school-age pedestrians killed in school-transportation related wrecks were killed by the school vehicle. Only 27% died from being hit by the other vehicle involved in the school transport related crash. About 43% of the children fatally injured were between 5 and 7 years old.
A major crash like the one last week in Orland, California can strongly affect the “averages” in government traffic data. On a more positive note, the Houston school bus accident attorneys at Denena Points, PC mention that the notable absence of advanced fire safety evacuation measures in the chartered bus and the deadly toll their absence took could prompt federal officials and safety agencies to finally promulgate much needed additional fire safety measures in buses that carry school children and people of all ages.
That bus travel usually conveys only the elderly, people of lower income, and students has meant that federal regulators focus more strongly on the safety concerns of more well-off people in the voting and working age ranges that can make their strident voices heard in the halls where policy is made. Click the link to learn about some of the safety gaps in bus transportation that have been recognized for years or even decades, but still have not been properly remedied.
Fatigue among long-haul truck drivers has been recognized for years as a contributing factor in many commercial truck crashes. Drivers doze off momentarily behind the wheel and then veer out of their lane off the road or into incoming traffic. Our Houston truck accident injury lawyers realize that sometimes drivers wake in time to get the vehicle back on course. But not always.
Driver fatigue could be one possible cause behind Orland, California fiery crash of a FedEx truck into a chartered bus carrying high school students to visit a college. The tragic crash killed 10 people, including 5 students, and injured at least 30 others. The fire spread quickly and people were trapped in the wrecked motorcoach bus and unable to get out in time. The FedEx truck reportedly was pulling two trailers when it crossed the center median to collide with the bus.
The NTSB is investigating, and there are many possible causes they must consider including driver medical conditions, driver intoxication, driver distraction, and driver fatigue, as well as mechanical failure. The NTSB investigates major accidents to learn lessons it can apply nationwide by making safety recommendations intended to prevent similar accidents from happening in the future. (Richard Clough and James Nash, Bloomberg News Business Week, 4/11/14)
We point out that highway “rumble strips” are one measure designed to alert fatigued drivers that they’re heading off course. But not every highway has them. The Houston truck accident injury lawyers at Denena Points, PC note that generally only stretches of road considered at high risk of such accidents based on past crash data end up with the rumble strips. And heavily loaded trucks are tricky to quickly maneuver. An attempt to correct an errant course could end in a jackknifed trailer or a rollover crash.
With two trailers like the FedEx truck was hauling, the danger and the difficulty are doubled. The loaded truck is twice as heavy and much more difficult to maneuver. Quick turns or swerving motions could send the back trailer into a jackknife that might even strike the truck cab. But companies wanting to move freight rapidly to its destination are turning more frequently to double and even triple trailer combinations.
The FMCSA (Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration) is the agency responsible for ensuring safe trucking practices. The agency says that each year truck driver fatigue directly accounts for over 750 deaths and 20,000 injuries. And about 98% of the victims of collisions with the commercial trucks are the occupants of the other vehicles.
In July, the FMCSA announced a new regulation long awaited by safety advocates: a law further limiting the number of hours long haul truckers may drive in a week. Some rules limiting driving hours have been in effect for years, but truck drivers have been known to fudge their log books and many trucks still don’t have automatic equipment that records the number of hours driven.
The new rules reduce the maximum average workweek for truck drivers from 82 to 70 hours, and allow those who reach the 70-hour maximum to begin driving once again after they have rested for 34 consecutive hours. That rest period must include two nights of sleep between the hours of 1 and 5 a.m. The rules also require drivers to take a 30-minute break during the first 8 hours of a shift, but do not change the prior 11-hour driving limit and 14 working hours limit per day. (The extra 3 hours in the 14 are so that the drivers can supervise proper loading and unloading of cargo.)
Truck drivers who continually work long daily and weekly hours have been linked to higher risks for crashes, chronic fatigue problems, and serious chronic health conditions, including obesity. Our Houston truck accident injury lawyers point out that the new safety rules are expected to save at least 19 lives and avoid 1,400 crashes and 500 injuries per year.
Truck drivers and trucking companies caught breaking the new rules could face maximum penalties on each offense. For instance, trucking companies and passenger carriers that let drivers exceed the new limits by over 3 hours might be fined $11,000 per violation. The individual truck drivers could be fined up to $2,750 per offense.
Unfortunately, history has shown that safety violators of all types don’t generally change their behavior until the costs of the risks impact their wallets. The new law doesn’t make as a big a change in actual truck driving practice as you might expect, and really only impacts the relatively small percentage of long haul truckers whose routes tend to keep them on the major highways most of the time. But for that small percentage, and the numbers of other drivers on the roads with them, the increased potential for safe driving could save their lives and help to avoid tragic, fiery crashes like the one that just happened in California between the FedEx truck and the bus carrying high school students.
Continue to the linked article to read about some safety gaps in motorcoach buses like the one involved in the fiery California FedEx truck collision.