Bad Guy in Nashville Car Accident gets off easy

Drug using driver that causes crash gets off easy.

Tennessee Auto Accident caused by fatigued driver on drugs

Tennessee car accidents are often connected to a driver's use of illegal or prescription drugs, and often driver fatigue from drug use makes them dangerous.

Knee injuries and Cartilage damage from Tennessee Auto Accidents may be repaired.

As many as 900,000 people each year suffer damage to the cartilage in their knees. New, novel approaches may be successful in restoring the cartilage and helping people function normally.

Tennessee Car Accidents Caused by Drunk Drivers Too Often

Tennessee Car Accidents Involve Drunk Drivers who may or may not be charged with a DUI for causing an auto accident in Tennessee. The legal consequences may not be enough to keep the drunk driver off the road unless you take the initiative to sue the drunk driver for your Tennessee auto accident.

Neck and Back Pain Most Common Complaints after Car accidents in Tennessee

When car accidents occur people often walk away feeling that they got lucky. It's only later that they realize they have a neck or back injury, sometimes an injury that won't get better without time, treatment, and even surgery.

Auto accidents in Tennessee caused by bad braking?

Avoiding a Tennessee auto accident may be possible if you use your ABS brakes correctly.

Concussions from car wrecks can cause brain injury

People in car or motorcycle accidents may have concussions whose symptoms seem mild, but have long term consequences.

Tennessee Auto accidents from driving under the influence decrease

Auto accidents in Tennessee and nationwide that are caused by drunk driving, cause thousands of fatalities every year.

Does having a Tennessee car wreck affect your insurance rates?

Being involved in a Tennessee automobile wreck may or may not affect your insurance rates, it depends on several factors.

Deer in the Headlights

Deer are more and more common in populated areas, and a hazard to drivers, swerving to avoid them is risky.

What to do if you are in an automobile accident

When you are involved in an auto accident, following a simple checklist will minimize your risk of making a costly mistake.

Teen Driving Safest when Parent Provide Clear Rules and Monitoring

Parents can have a major role in whether or not their teens are at risk for being in a car crash. Research has shown then when parents have rules about the use of a car, teens are less likely to be involved in risky driving behaviors.  The simplest rules? Here are a few:

1. Always wear a seat belt, no matter what seat you are in or how many people are in the car.
2. Don't use your cell phone while driving. This means you do not answer the cellphone, do not make a call on the cellphone, and do not text while you are driving.
3. Do not use alcohol and drive, do not get into a car where the driver has been drinking, and get out of the car if someone has been drinking. We will come and get you and be proud that you were so strong.

Authoritative parents were much more likely to have teen drivers who avoided risky driving then parents who were not authoritative. Another finding? Teens who shared a vehicle were less likely to engage in risky behavior than those that has their own car. As attorneys who represent teens, and the victims of teen drivers, we know that these simple rules can make a difference. For more information from this study and its recommendations, click here.

Uninsured Drivers have Their Own Stories

I was recently contacted by a consumer who had seen my profile on AVVO. It was not a case we would take -  no one was injured and the young woman who contacted me was the person who caused the wreck. She was concerned because 4 months after the wreck she was contacted by Allstate Insurance wanting her to pay for more than $3,000 in property damage to another vehicle.  Although she was at fault - there was no way she could pay for the damages - she was one of the thousands of uninsured drivers on Tennessee roads. She and her boyfriend were having a hard time paying their rent and utilities during the winter and spring of 2009, so car insurance was dropped. When this wreck happened her car was totaled and the only transportation they had for work for the next 6 weeks was a bicycle.  Unless you are terribly pressed financially, uninsured motorist coverage is critical protection for you and your family.

Teens Need Graduated Driver Licensing Laws

The National Safety Council reports (and has reported for years) that the leading cause of death for 15- to 20-year-olds is motor vehicle crashes. More than 5,000 teens are killed in motor vehicle crashes annually. This age group also is the largest age group to not wear seat belts - and also most likely to be texting while driving and engaging in other high risk behavior behind the wheel. 

To help prevent teen driving deaths, the National Safety Council announced its support for the Safe Teen and Novice Driver Uniform Protection (STANDUP) Act. If passed, the legislation would "provide driver safety grants to states with graduated driver licensing laws that meet certain minimum requirements." This is a good thing.  I know we all have a lot to do, but a call to your members of Congress about this could eventually save lives.  Even if you don't have a teenager, you have to be on the same roads that they are on.

How much car insurance is enough?

You should carry as much insurance as you can afford. If you are in a serious wreck and cannot work for a year, how much will you need? What if you cannot go back to work?  What if you are at fault and the shoe is on the other foot? What could you lose if you had no insurance?  For most people our firm recommends a minimum of $100,000 per person, $300,000 per vehicle (this is the same limit recommended by edmunds.com and others who have looked at the "minimum" needed by most people). This means that the most someone could recover from your insurance (if you were at fault) is $100,000, and if you were injured by an uninsured driver or underinsured driver, the most you could recover would be $100,000.  That's a lot of money, but it won't last long, it may not even cover all the medical bills.  So, in addition to getting the most car insurance you can afford (generally $250,000/person, $500,000/vehicle) we also recommend that people talk to their insurance agent about getting an umbrella for $1,000,000 or more. You can use a financial worth calculator to see how much you really have to lose (and how much insurance you might need). You may be worth more than you think.

Insurance Companies Unscrupulously Deny and Delay Legitimate Claims

A study released by the American Association for Justice finds reports that insurance companies, despite being hugely profitable, had adopted policies of denying, delaying, and then defending claims that are entirely legitimate.  CNN's Anderson Cooper featured this problem in a report titled "Keeping them Honest-Insurance Battle". The bottom line, despite huge profits insurance companies have adopted policies to deny and delay payments on legitimate claims to increase profits even further. They will go so far as to defend claims, requiring consumers to go to trial on legitimate cases that could and should be settled. We have been telling our clients this for years. It's good for CNN and others to publish the truth about insurance companies. Knowledge is power. You may not be able to safely deal with an insurance adjuster if you are an accident victim, but you can understand what is going on and get some professional help to level the playing field.

Road Rage

We have all seen examples of aggressive, reckless driving. Why does it happen? More often that not the person behind the wheel has "issues", sometimes characterized as "road rage", sometime alcohol, sometimes plain stupidity. These are dangerous people to be on the road with, but who has a choice? Road rage and aggressive driving are projected to cost more than $40 billion per year in losses and damages. Speeding, tailgating, running lights, and weaving in traffic are all examples of aggressive, dangerous driving. Law enforcement programs in Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Maryland, Virginia, and Florida have resulted in more than 400,000 tickets for aggressive driving.

Road Rage Kills 4 people on I-75

Interstate travel sometimes involves encountering drivers who are going faster, or slower than you are traveling. Sometimes someone passes you and slows down and you have to pass them again, and then they speed up. Lots of things can happen that might irritate you, but it should stop there.  Anger when you are behind the wheel is a very dangerous emotion and can spin things out of control. A man driving a Saturn SUV on I-75 reached that point last week. He had been having some "problems" with a driver in a Honda Accord, and rear-ended the Accord. That would have been bad enough, but a small truck traveling to the rear couldn't stop when the Saturn slowed after impact. It rear-ended the SUV, bursting it into flames. The driver and all 3 passengers were killed.  Rage.  Never a good thing, and incredibly dangerous when driving a car.  For more information about this story click here.

Nashville Not Safe for Pedestrians

Nashville is now officially the 2nd least walkable city in the U.S.A. which translates into our getting more than our fair share of the 4500 pedestrian deaths and 70,000 injuries that occur annually.  Innovations in traffic lighting - reminding drivers that they have an obligation to look out for pedestrians at cross walks - have significantly reduced deaths in other cities. Maybe it's time for us?  for more information, click here.

Animals in Road - Moving Hazards

A recent collision involving a car that swerved to avoid an animal in the road resulted in injuries to the driver. My firm has handled these kinds of cases in the past, including everything from cows in the road to pets to wild game.  It is very common to encounter animals on the roadway. The amount of time to respond is often minimal, and the animals are frequently moving into or across the path of the oncoming car. While the natural instinct is to swerve and avoid contact, this often leads to loss of control. Damage to your car may be preferable to losing control and killing the animal anyway.

Texting Leads to Death in Car Wreck

Texting may be illegal in Tennessee, but I doubt that the change in the law will deter those "crackberry" addicts who think a short text message won't affect their ability to drive safely. Unfortunately, taking your eyes from the road does affect your ability to drive safely and everyone on the road is at risk when a driver decides they can get away with this kind of risky behavior. In a Vancouver case, a driver was killed when he lost control. His "crackberry" survived.  For more information,  click here. 

Chrysler Loses Appeal over Punitive Damages

In 2001, 8 month-old Joshua Flax was in a car seat in the back seat of the family Dodge Caravan.  A pick-up truck rear-ended the minivan, a collision that should not have caused serious injury to a child in a car seat. Unfortunately, the collision caused the right side front seat to break, go backwards, and hit and crush the small child's skull. Chrysler knew about the tendency of these seats to break and a Nashville Jury did the right thing, awarding punitive damages against Chrysler to send them a message. This was Chrysler's appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court and the Court upheld the Nashville Court's award of $13 in punitive damages. For more information, click here.

SUV loses control killing cab driver

A Nashville cab driver was killed Tuesday May 19 when an SUV lost control. The wreck happened on Ellington Parkway which has a wide, grass median.  Apparently, not wide enough.  The SUV driver said she swerved to avoid debris in the road and then ran off the road, across the median, and into the cab of Mr. Hussein Ali with enough force to kill him. Do you think the SUV driver may have been going too fast? "Debris"?  I thought one of the reasons for driving an SUV was ground clearance and durability - so now an innocent man is dead for "debris"?  It doesn't make any sense. The fact is, this SUV driver exercised bad judgment, really bad judgment. Not everyone should be allowed to drive. This lady maybe one of those people who should not.

Beer on 5 hours of Sleep Makes for Bad Driving

Two beers is usually considered "safe" by most people, but it's not always safe. If someone has had 2 beers, and only 5 hours of sleep, their risk of being in a crash increases 4 times over someone who had no beer. This risk is especially pronounced in people under 25 years of age. Their brain and hormonal changes require more sleep than older adults, yet their lifestyle is often incompatible with safe amounts of sleep. The results? More than 55% of crashes where the driver fell asleep involve drivers 25 years old or younger. For more information see our library and click here.

Using a Cell Phone While Driving in Tennessee

Several states have already enacted laws banning the use of hand-held cell phones while driving.  Currently, Tennessee is not one of them.  In Tennessee, you are allowed to use a cell phone while operating your vehicle, but there is a chance that the law could eventually change.

Research has shown that using a cell phone while driving increases the risk of a serious car accident.  The Harvard Center of Risk Analysis concluded from its study that using a cell hone while driving accounts for 6 percent of car crashes each year in the United States.  Even though 6 percent doesn’t seem like a high number, when you review the total number of crashes in the country, it means that 636,000 accidents, 330,000 injuries, 12,000 serious injuries and 2,600 deaths can be attributed to drivers using cell phones.

Another study was conducted by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration that showed that the majority of auto accidents happen within three seconds of a distraction.  When it comes to cell phones, that means if a driver looks down for three seconds to dial a telephone number or reaches for a ringing cell phone, the odds of causing a car accident increases.

In Sullivan County, a ban on cell phones has been proposed.  However, two of the county commission’s three primary committees said that they will not endorse the resolution to ban hand-held cell phones while driving.

The National Safety Council is lobbying for a nationwide ban on drivers using cell phones and other messaging devices while driving.  The organization is planning to lobby all 50 states plus Washington D.C. to enact laws that ban both hand-held and hands-free cell phones, as well as texting while driving.  If successful, Tennessee could join the states that ban cell phones while driving.

The article, “Will Cell Phones be Banned in Tennessee,” has more information on cell phone bans.

If you have been injured in a car accident that was caused by a distractive driver, you may be entitled to compensation.  Contact the Tennessee car accident attorneys at Phillip Miller & Associates at (800) 337-HURT (4878) or (615) 356-2000 for expert legal advice.