Collapsing Mobility Scooter Seat Causes Fatal Florida Accident
People tend to assume that products like mobility scooters, which are marketed primarily to the elderly, infirm, and disabled, must meet rigorous safety standards to be suitable for their intended market. Right? Wrong. Mobility scooters as yet must meet no mandatory safety standards. There are some voluntary standards that their manufacturers can choose to meet. Our Galveston, TX product defect attorneys note that with mobility scooter manufacturers, as with folks out in the real world, not everyone volunteers.
Carolyn Sorenson suffered from a disease that from birth left her unable to walk. But with the help of devices like mobility scooters, she could live a productive life on her own. In January 2009, she died from positional asphyxiation after the molded plastic seat of her Daytona GT3 Electric Scooter collapsed. The seat collapse caused her upper torso to be wedged behind her against a doorframe, while her lower half remained belted into the remains of the broken scooter seat.
After initial certification of their products, manufacturers sometimes change the design or materials mix. For instance, with the Daytona GT3, which the manufacturer claimed had a pure polypropylene seat, the manufacturer had actually changed over time to a mixture of polypropylene and weaker, recycled plastic. These seemingly slight changes can lead to fatal injuries, as in Ms. Sorenson’s case.
Recycled plastic can contain tiny impurities and occlusions that change the way a molded product reacts to stresses. The plastic is more brittle, and tends to fracture under stress, as Ms. Sorenson’s did.
The lawyer retained by Ms. Sorenson’s daughter in the case tested exemplar seats of the Daytona GT3 and found that indeed they contained a mixture using recycled plastic. The seats containing the recycled materials did not address the needs of the real world stresses that they were likely to encounter, such as rearward loading with handicapped users.
That lawyer has issued calls to the CPSC (Consumer Product Safety Commission) and the Veterans’ Administration to begin random spot checks on powered mobility devices intended for disabled customers. If the devices do not meet the minimum voluntary safety standards, he wants the organizations to warn the public.
Carolyn Sorenson’s case shows that if you or a loved one suffers from an injury caused by a defective product accident, you do have recourse. An experienced and knowledgeable Galveston, TX product defect attorney could help you recover just financial compensation for your losses from the accident. Call us today for your free consultation if you’re suffering because of a product defect accident.
Houston Pedestrian Accident Lawyers Focus on Halloween Child Safety
Halloween is an exciting time for children of all ages. They get to dress up like their favorite characters and eat all the candy they could ever hope for. But as parents worry about tainted candy and making sure their kids’ costumes look just right, many of them forget to make sure their children are protected against the most dangerous Halloween hazard – vehicles.
On a night where ghosts and goblins reign, vehicles take a backseat in scariness. However, more children are injured in Texas pedestrian accidents on Halloween night than on any other night of the year. In fact, a study by the University of Michigan Transportation Research Institute found that the risk of pedestrian injuries on Halloween night is 4.5 times higher than on any other night of the year. Keep your children safe by following these safety tips:
Costumes
- Make sure costumes do not impede movement or vision.
- Consider face paint instead of a mask. If a mask is worn, make sure the child’s vision is not impaired.
- Hats or scarves should fit well and not be covering the child’s eyes.
- Make sure the child wears shoes that fit well and are not a tripping hazard.
- Be sure the costume is not too long.
Visibility
- Black, although a popular color for Halloween, is not the safest color at night. If your child’s costume is black, consider sewing on reflective tape.
- Have children carry a flashlight to see better as well as make themselves more visible to others.
- Remind children not to cross mid-street. Only cross at corners and use designated crosswalks when they are available.
- Stay in well lit-neighborhoods. Do not travel into dark or dimly lit areas.
Motorists
- Drive slowly. Be on the lookout for children who may be darting between vehicles or crossing mid-street.
- Enter and exit driveways and alleyways with caution.
- Expect the unexpected. Never assume that a child sees your vehicle or will stop before crossing in front of you.
By making sure children travel together in well-lit areas and increase their visibility as much as possible, we can all make trick-or-treating a less scary experience.
If you know a child who has been injured in a pedestrian accident in Texas, you need to contact a Houston injury lawyer for help. Call our office at 877-307-9500 for a free consultation.
Also be sure to order your FREE copy of our leading book on Houston accident questions, What Every Houston Accident Victim Needs to Know.
Houston Car Crash Lawyers Provide Teen Driver Safety Week Tips
October 16-22 is National Teen Driver Safety Week. During this week, we focus on the importance of educating teen drivers to be safe and aware when they are behind the wheel. By educating teens and stressing the importance of driving cautiously, we hope to decrease the number of Houston car accidents involving teen drivers.
Teen drivers between the ages of 16 and 19 years old are at four times higher risk of fatal accident injuries than drivers who between 25 and 69 years old. Not only do these drivers have a higher risk than older, more experienced drivers, but their risk also increases when other teens are present in the vehicle. For example, if a teen is driving with another teen in the passenger seat, their risk of suffering a fatal accident doubles. If there are 3 or more teen passengers, the risk of a fatal accident quadruples.
In order to decrease teenagers’ risk of suffering injuries in an accident, we need to first address the underlying causes.
- Inexperience – One of the main causes of accidents comes down to simple inexperience. Driving is a learning process, and teens will not know how to properly handle a vehicle without some practice.
- Distractions – Distractions such as passengers, music, eating or just daydreaming play a large role in teen crashes.
- Nighttime driving – It is much harder to see at night. Make sure teens are comfortable with daytime driving before moving to nighttime driving.
- Inclement weather – Weather conditions change the way a vehicle handles. Teens may not allow for more room to stop on slick roads or may overreact is their vehicle starts to slide.
- Reckless driving – Teens like to appear cool to their friends, which may lead them to make reckless driving decisions such as speeding, tailgating, or swerving between lanes of traffic.
If a teen you know and love has been seriously injured in a car accident in Houston, you need to seek legal help. Contact a Houston car accident lawyer at Denena & Points to learn more about your rights to seek compensation after a serious accident.
What Did Texas Medical Tort Reform Law Actually Do for Texans?
Your personal injury attorney for The Woodlands, TX recommends a look at a detailed and informative report by the consumer advocacy nonprofit organization Public Citizen. Ralph Nader’s Public Citizen organization takes the Texas medical tort reform law to task for its failure to improve the lot of Texans as promised. The report, “A Failed Experiment,” provides data that shows that the Texas medical tort reform legislation actually benefited the medical industry and insurers rather than ordinary Texans.
Those, like the Texas Medical Association, that promote the Texas medical tort reform legislation said that limiting medical malpractice monetary damage awards would lower health care costs and give Texans increased access to better and less expensive health care. Let’s take a look at what hard data says actually happened after the Texas medical tort reform law was passed.
- Medicare spending rose faster than the national average.
- Medical diagnostic testing expenses for ill and injured Texans increased at a rate 25.6 % higher than the national average.
- Private health insurance premiums rose faster than the national average.
- After the tort reform law was passed in 2003, the per capita increase in the number of primary care physicians in Texas decreased from 9.3% to 4.2%.
- After the Texas medical tort reform law was passed, the number of doctors in rural areas decreased by 1%. The number of doctors in rural areas had increased by 23.9% in the 7 years BEFORE the law was passed.
- The percentage of Texans living without health care insurance coverage INCREASED to 24.6% in 2010 from 23.6% in 2003. Texas has the highest rate of uninsured residents in the entire nation.
- Texas doctors face far less accountability for their errors than before the tort reform law was passed. Doctors’ medical liability insurance premiums decreased by 50.5% since 2003, and far fewer doctors even subscribe to the coverage since 2003.
- This lack of accountability and the medical liability caps on recovery have translated into a windfall for medical liability insurers. Malpractice payments that insurers must make have fallen at a rate of 64.8% – 74.1%, an even greater rate than doctors’ policy premium amounts. Hence the windfall.
- Most personal injury lawyers won’t accept your medical malpractice cases anymore, because the legislation has left little that your personal injury attorney for The Woodlands can do for you.
The data show that doctors and insurers reaped the benefits of the Texas medical tort reform law, while ordinary Texans suffer even more than before the law was passed from inadequate health care and lack of health care insurance coverage.
Protect Yourself from Injury on Black Friday: Stay Home
Black Friday is the safest day to be at home. Your chances of injury or fatality from a house fire are the lowest in the year.
But the minute you step out the door, your chances of injury or death increase precipitously. The roads are still filled with drunk drivers who celebrated the holiday with far too much alcohol, then made the deadly choice to get behind the wheel.
And even if you arrive safely at the mall or big box retailer whose sales drew you, your worries aren’t over yet. Fights, pepper spray, trampling, and shootouts await the unwary shopper.
The military needs to quit recruiting out of high schools and look at recruiting out of Wal*mart and other big retailers on Black Friday. There, apparently, is where they’ll find experienced, ruthless fighters heedless of causing human harm that will go into battle against crowds without a thought to personal safety.
But how the military could arrange things to properly motivate these would be warriors presents an obstacle. Plant high-end flat screen TVs at strategic points in the Libyan desert? Arrange to have caches of the latest video game equipment or iPods in strategic urban centers in Iraq? It’s a conundrum.
After a retail worker opening doors to shoppers on Black Friday died under a stampede in 2008, OSHA issued guidelines for crowd control and safety to big retailers to help them avoid dangerous workplace injuries. But Black Friday violence and mayhem continues. Your best bet to avoid physical injuries incurred in Black Friday frenzies probably rests in waiting to shop online on Cyber Monday.
If you didn’t shop online, but instead encountered a would be warrior at a store on Black Friday, and you received injuries caused by their negligence or reckless behavior, feel free to contact our Houston personal injury lawyers for a free and confidential legal consultation.
The Houston personal injury lawyers at Denena & Points could help you determine winning strategies for recovering financial compensation for your wounds from those who caused them. If you need an ally to stand up for your rights, we’re here for you. We still believe that the pen is mightier than the sword. Use our legal expertise and skill with the mighty sword of the law to fight for your financial recovery.
Who Benefits from the 2003 Texas Medical Malpractice Tort Reform Law?
Personal injury lawyer for The Woodlands, TX explains the Texas medical malpractice tort reform law of 2003. The 2003 tort reform law set a cap on your recovery for non-economic damages from an injury caused by medical malpractice. Your non-economic damages include pain and suffering.
- The tort reform law’s cap limits your damages to $250,000 from each health care provider responsible for your injuries. You have a maximum potential recovery of $750,000. Before the 2003 tort reform law, juries could award injured victims millions of dollars in non-economic damages where the facts of the case warranted it. Economic damages such as medical expenses and lost wages remain uncapped.
- Your personal injury lawyer for The Woodlands, TX notes that Texas medical malpractice liability insurance premiums have fallen by more than 50%. The Texas Medical Liability Trust is a self-insurance group owned by the physicians it covers. The Trust stands as Texas’ largest provider of medical malpractice liability coverage.
- The premiums the Trust collected for medical malpractice liability coverage between 2003 and 2010 reflect an alarming 50%+ decrease in the coverage. Your personal injury lawyer for The Woodlands, TX believes that this sharp drop in coverage shows that doctors believe they no longer need medical malpractice liability coverage. These physicians no longer feel the need to protect themselves from the costly consequences of injuring you with their errors.
- Texas medical malpractice liability payments by insurers have plummeted even more: from $247 million in 2003 to just $87 million in 2010. The consumer advocacy group Public Citizen pinpointed the reason for this vast decrease in Texas medical malpractice liability payments since the tort reform law took effect. Public Citizen said the drop demonstrates that Texas doctors benefit from lesser accountability for their errors and use of defective medical devices than their peers elsewhere in the nation.
The bottom line reveals that the medical and insurance industries, the very groups that promoted the tort reform law in the first place, also reap the benefits from the law. They win; you lose. Your personal injury lawyer for The Woodlands reminds you that “reform” isn’t always what it seems.
The Shoulders of our Texas Roadways: Risky Places for You to Be
Deer Park accident lawyers see that annually hundreds of people suffer fatal injuries on the shoulders of U.S. roads. These fatalities include:
1. Accident first responders,
2. Reporters covering accidents from the shoulder of the road,
3. Pedestrians walking alongside the road, and
4. People with stalled, wrecked, or broken down vehicles.
Around 12% of the fatalities tied to our interstates actually represent pedestrians in the roadway or on the shoulder of the road. A large proportion of these fatalities occur at night. Deer Park accident lawyers caution you that at night more drivers are driving impaired (DUI) or fatigued. And even unimpaired drivers have greater difficulty in visually detecting obstacles or pedestrians in their paths at night.
To save yourself from being injured in an accident on the shoulder of a roadway, Deer Park accident lawyers say that you should:
- Try to make it to the nearest exit off the road in the event of an emergency.
- If you have to be on the shoulder of the road, try to stay inside your vehicle if at all possible.
- If you have a flat tire, drive to the nearest exit and find a safe place to stop your car. Replacing a ruined rim might cost several hundred dollars, but stopping on the shoulder could cost you your life. And you can’t replace that.
- If you can’t make it off the shoulder, pull off as far away from traffic as possible. Use your hazard lights. If there’s a guardrail or fence, get on the other side (unless you’re on an overpass shoulder). If you have flares, use them.
Local laws generally require that you move away a lane if you spot an accident or first responders at the scene of an accident. But that’s not always possible in rapid or heavy traffic. And drivers might have little time and only a short distance to react to an emergency. Experience teaches us that some people react better than others in the event of an emergency. So don’t take chances.
If another person’s unsafe, negligent, or reckless driving injures you or wrongfully kills your loved one on the shoulder of a road, the Deer Park accident lawyers of Denena & Points could help you. Our extensive experience and in-depth knowledge of the complexities of vehicle accident claims could help you recover just financial compensation for your losses from the accident. Call us today for your free and confidential accident consultation. Let us help you make a full recovery.
Poly-Drugs in Impaired Drivers Represent a Growing TX Accident Hazard
Chemical tests conducted on the blood draws of impaired drivers around the Houston area find more traces of prescription drugs than in the past. The drugs are often used in conjunction with alcohol and/or illegal drugs. The poly-drug combinations increase the lethal effects of DUI impairment. Some of the prescription drugs most commonly found in poly-drug impaired drivers’ blood include:
Soma,
Xanax, and
Hydrocodone.
These drugs impair drivers’ reaction times, physical coordination, and decision-making abilities.
In the summer of 2010, a “no refusal” night of DUI enforcement in Houston, TX found substantial numbers of Houstonians driving under the influence of poly-drug combinations. Approximately 60% of the first several hundred blood draws found drugs other than alcohol in the drivers’ bloodstreams.
Houston police tie the growth in the number of poly-drugged drivers to widespread misuse and abuse of prescription drugs. Houston, already a national “ground zero” for drunk driving and illegal street racing, has also become a flashpoint for illegal drug activity.
Houston forms the hub of a network dedicated to the illegal sale and distribution of a trio of prescription drugs known as “the holy trinity” or the Houston Cocktail. You saw these drugs mentioned above: Xanax, Soma, and hydrocodone. Taken together, they can give the user a heroin-type high. They can also cause the user to crash fatally into a fixed object by the road. Or into you.
At least two dozen Houston law enforcement agencies have responded to the growing crisis by adding trained drug recognition experts (DREs) to their staffs. The DREs respond to DWI arrests to evaluate the suspect for the possibility of impairing substances besides alcohol. They recommend chemical tests to detect drugs. The DREs help to determine the category of drug adding to the drivers’ evident impairment.
The DREs’ evaluations of suspects’ exhibited behaviors can supplement lab reports to help your Deer Park injury lawyer present a strong and winning claim for you in court. Your strong and valid injury claim could net you substantial amounts of monetary compensation from the negligent parties who caused your accident injuries. Call Denena & Points, experienced Deer Park injury lawyers, for your completely confidential and free accident consultation.
The Massive Destruction Wrought by a Galveston 18-Wheeler Accident
Galveston 18-wheeler accident lawyers have seen time and again that the structures of passenger vehicles can’t hold up to the onslaught of a massive 18-wheeler in a wreck. Even a stopped 18-wheeler presents no match for the mass and momentum of a moving 18-wheeler.
The damage that Galveston 18-wheeler accident lawyers often see resulting from Galveston 18-wheeler accidents measures far more than the physical destruction of the vehicles and the trucks’ cargos. An enormous human cost in terms of physical and emotional injuries also results from the wreck.
The law accepts financial values for all of the costly accident consequences caused by the negligence of truckers, trucking companies, and related parties. The financial compensation that you could obtain from a personal injury or wrongful death lawsuit after a Galveston 18-wheeler accident could help you become financially whole and get on with your life again.
When a passenger vehicle tangles with a big rig in a Galveston 18-wheeler accident, some of the resulting injuries might include:
A broken pelvis;
Brain trauma;
A spinal injury;
Neck fractures;
Burns;
Disfigurement;
Ruptured internal organs;
Lacerations;
Amputation of limbs; and/or
Paralysis.
Many of these injuries can have a lasting financial impact, as well as a physical one. Mounting medical costs may ruin your finances. You may not be able to work for a long while or perhaps ever again. You may have lost the family’s primary breadwinner to the Galveston 18-wheeler accident. You may require ongoing medical care, rehabilitations, and therapies. Your pain, suffering, and mental anguish may not go away like you would prefer.
Your Galveston 18-wheeler accident lawyer could help you calculate accurate financial values for all of these consequences of your wreck. He could present these values, along with compelling evidence regarding trucker and trucking company negligence in your wreck, to convince a jury to award you the full financial compensation that you need to go on with life after your injuries.
At Denena & Points, we’re Galveston 18-wheeler accident lawyers with a winning track record. We’ve been helping injured victims make full financial recoveries for their 18-wheeler accidents for more than 12 years. We could help you too. Call today for your free legal consultation.
Galveston Truck Crashes & the Truck Driver Fatigue that Causes Them
Galveston truck accident attorneys know that Title 49 of the Code of Federal Regulations limits the number of hours truck drivers may legally drive in a single day. These regulations provide that truckers may drive no more than 11 hours after a rest break of 10 consecutive hours. In an effort to prevent truck driver fatigue, regulations permit truckers to drive no more than 60 hours in 7 consecutive days.
But despite these rules, many truck drivers stay on the road for long and tedious hours. Indeed the average trucker drives more than 125,000 miles each year. Long hours of monotonous highway driving leads to truck driver fatigue. But drivers might feel pressured to skip breaks and drive extra long hours for many reasons.
The need to earn extra income through extra deliveries. Trucking industry revenues total in the hundreds of billions of dollars each year. But the industry remains highly competitive. And individual truck drivers may not be highly paid for their labor.
The competitive demands of a tight job market. If a trucker insists on complying with mandated rest periods to avoid truck driver fatigue, an unscrupulous trucking company might well fire him and hire another driver who’s willing to drive as long as they demand.
A desire to get home at the end of a long route.
A desire to push on and avoid rush hours or other potential delays.
Galveston truck accident attorneys know of situations where truck drivers might put in 100-hour work weeks on the road. The truck driver fatigue that results from such long hours causes hundreds of accident fatalities and tens of thousands of accident injuries each year. Approximately a third of fatal Galveston truck crashes result from truck driver fatigue.
Overworked truck drivers can become drowsy or inattentive, or just plain fall asleep at the wheel. When the truck driver no longer consciously directs his vehicle, the 80,000 behemoth becomes a deadly missile aimed at the innocent victims around it. The horrific Galveston truck crash that results might claim several lives and destroy the quality of life for those who survive.
Government agencies simply don’t have the manpower to regularly inspect trucks and check truck drivers for compliance with regulations. So truck drivers know that they can often get away with driving for as long as they want to drive. Unfortunately, their disregard for federal safety regulations can lead to devastating Galveston truck crashes from truck driver fatigue.
A Galveston truck crash caused by truck driver fatigue might not injure the sleepy truck driver. But it might kill or maim innocent victims occupying smaller vehicles. If you were injured in a Galveston truck crash, or your loved ones were injured or killed by the negligence of a sleepy truck driver, you might be entitled to a large amount of financial compensation. An experienced Galveston truck accident attorney could accurately evaluate your case and help you understand its value for you and your family.
The Galveston truck accident attorneys of Denena & Points could help you obtain full personal injury damages when you have been negligently injured in a Galveston truck crash. A Galveston truck accident attorney from our office could help you win just wrongful death damages when your loved ones were negligently killed as a result of truck driver fatigue. Call today for your free consultation and initial case evaluation.