Common Personal Injury Accidents

Personal injury accidents can happen anywhere and at any time. However, some types of accidents are more common than others. It is important to understand the most common types of personal injury accidents to that you can try to avoid them and so that you can seek the assistance of a personal injury lawyer if you have the misfortune of being involved in such an accident.

Most personal injury accidents happen when someone acts negligently. In order to prove negligence, the injured party must be able to establish that the defendant:

·         Owed the plaintiff a duty of care: The definition of a “duty of care” varies among the states. Some states look only to whether a personal injury was a foreseeable consequence of the defendant’s actions while other states look to the foreseeability, the possible magnitude of the harm, the cost of avoiding the harm and other factors.

·         Breached the duty of care: A defendant breaches his or her duty of care if the defendant failed to act like a reasonable person would have acted given the situation. The reasonable person standard is often one that is contested and argued about in personal injury litigation.

·         Caused the plaintiff’s injuries: which would not have happened but for the defendant’s breach of the duty of care. In other words, the plaintiff’s injuries must have occurred because of the defendant’s actions and not because of some underlying medical cause or action that the plaintiff took.

·         Is liable for damages to the plaintiff: If the above elements of negligence are satisfied and the plaintiff is either the injured party or someone with standing to sue then the plaintiff is entitled to damages.

Negligence is often established in the following types of common personal injury accident cases:

· Car Accidents: including rear end accidents and intersection accidents;

· Motorcycle Accidents;

· Truck Accidents;

· Boat Accidents;

· Bus Accidents;

· Pedestrian Accidents;

· Bicycle Accidents;

· Medical Accidents: including birth injuries, surgical errors, the failure to diagnose, emergency room malpractice and other forms of medical malpractice;

· Slip and Fall Accidents: including slipping and falling on uneven ground, wet floors or slippery spots;

· Workplace Accidents: including workplace illnesses such as Mesothelioma and injuries caused by machines or other equipment;

· Defective Product Accidents: including foodborne illnesses, children’s toys, defective drugs and defective medical devices; and

· Animal Bite Accidents: by any animal not under your personal care or control.

Personal injury attorneys are familiar with the common types of personal injury accidents and can help you determine if you have a valid claim against the party or parties responsible for your injuries. Each state has a specific statute of limitations within which you must file a lawsuit to recover compensation for injuries sustained in a personal injury accident or forego your claim. Therefore, if you have sustained injuries or a loved one has been killed in any of the above listed common personal injury accidents or another type of personal injury accident then you should contact a personal injury lawyer in your state as soon as possible.

I take a personal approach, listening carefully to the details of your case so that I can tailor your representation to get the results you seek.

For a Free Consultation call 727-475-6854.

I hope you found this information helpful.

Until then, Be Careful Out There!

All My Best-

Bill Schneikart

Personal Injury Lawyer

Distracted Driving Awareness Month

In honor of Distracted Driving Awareness Monthl, the American Society of Safety Engineers (ASSE) Transportation Practice Specialty (TPS) group is spreading the word that every driver must steer clear of the dangers of distracted driving.

Statistics show that 6,000 people are killed by distracted drivers every year, and another 500,000 are injured. Young drivers are more likely to be killed in distraction-related crashes, according to the U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT). Distracted driving is dangerous and is consequences can be dire. As ASSE President Terrie S. Norris, CSP, ARM, puts it, "life can change in a second."

Look at this-  To illustrate this point, ASSE TPS members Earnest F. Harper, CSP, and Timothy C. Healey explained that at 40 mph, a car is traveling 58.7 feet per second (fps). If the driver takes their eyes off the road for 2.9 seconds to glance at a phone, they will have traveled 170 feet. And at 60 mph, the car is moving 88 fps, meaning that a 2.9-second glance away equals a distance of over 255 feet.

"In either case, at these common speeds, each is more than enough time to end up being several feet under that slow-moving tractor-trailer rig ahead of you that you didn't see," Healey said. "And in a 40 mph crash, a 100-pound person or child who isn't wearing a seat belt will hit the dash board with a force of 2.6 tons, and a 3,000 pound car crashing at 40 mph will experience a crash force of 80.28 tons, reducing any chance of surviving."

ASSE is urging motorists to put their phone down, or simply turn it off when they're in the car, avoid eating while driving and program the GPS before you leave. Minimizing distractions allows drivers to maximize their attention on the road.

To avoid distracted driving, the TPS group suggests:

· Program your device so you do not answer and notify the caller that you will be driving and are not available to respond at the moment. In an emergency, family should know to call 911 or other family members.

· In case someone urgently needs to reach you, devise a procedure such as three rings, hang up, wait 2 minutes, call again and repeat to allow time to pull over safely.

· Know your route in advance and, if using a navigation system, pre-program it.

· Prepare the vehicle cab and yourself for driving, including your management of any distractions, be they inside or outside of your vehicle.

· Maintain safe spacing on the road or move to a less obstructed lane.

Currently, 35 states, the District of Columbia, and Guam ban text messaging for all drivers and many states now ban cell phone use by drivers. The list of states banning in-vehicle cell-phone use is at  http://www.distraction.gov/content/get-the-facts/state-laws.html.

Unfortunately  FLORIDA is not one of them...but it's only a matter of time before this legislation comes forward.

But I think it’s time everyone start talking and thinking about potential solutions.

I invite you to let me know what you think and leave a comment below in the comment box.

I take a personal approach, listening carefully to the details of your case so that I can tailor your representation to get the results you seek.

For a Free Consultation call 727-475-6854.

I hope you found this information helpful. About every 2-3 weeks
or so I’ll provide additional meaningful articles regarding
personal injury issues and related legalities.

Until then, Be Careful Out There!

All My Best-

Bill Schneikart

Personal Injury Lawyer

Social Security: The most successful social program in our history.

Can it continue to do what it has done so well?

I was so very interested in an article I recently read by Amanda Berthoff in the Perspectives Magazine that is published  by the University of Missouri at Kansas City, that I decided to use much of its content as the basis of my next blog post.

We often hear younger workers voice concerns that they’ll have to bear the burden of paying for the aging population themselves. This is an issue, but prior to the creation of Social Security, a large number of retired workers lived in poverty, especially women because they tend to live longer than men.

                Government estimates suggest that when Social Security began in 1935, close to 50 percent of the elderly population lived in poverty. By 1959, the rate had fallen to 35% but remained higher than that of other groups, including children and working-age adults. During the 1960’s and early 1970’s, Social Security benefits increased and poverty rates among the elderly declined rapidly. By 1974, the poverty rate for elderly Americans had fallen below that for children, where it has remained since. In 1993, it fell below the rate of working-age adults and today just 11% of the elderly have incomes below the federal ($10,890 for 1 person family; $14,710 for 2 person family) poverty line .

                Studies show that without income from Social Security, the poverty rate for the elderly would be much higher. The Social Security Administration estimates that 47% of individuals age 65 and older would live in poverty without Social Security benefits, four times as many as in poverty today. Social Security’s poverty-reducing record- along with its inclusiveness- has made it one of the most popular social programs in history. “The value of that is something we don’t want to lose sight of,” says Mary Daly, a social security expert. “We don’t want to move away from it completely. At some point younger workers will be older and will want that kind of insurance.”

                Another reason younger generations should care about older generations is because someday, they will be in the same boat. “If you don’t die, you’ll get old,”  says Gloria Thomas Anderson, M.S.W. ’06, clinical instructor at UMKC’s department of social Work. “If you live long enough, you’ll reach that point in your life, and you don’t know what it’s like until you actually get there.”

Finding a Middle Ground

To better understand what a cross-generational compromise might entail, it helps to consider age expectancy.  Americans now work more productively and longer into their lives that ever. “Raising the retirement age- if you were expecting to retire at 65 and now you’re retiring at 67 might not really be that bad,” Daly says. “You have more time after retirement that people did when social security was created.”  Social Security used to guarantee 6 to 7 years of post-retirement living because life expectancies were lower. Now it’s more like 15 to 20 years.

Because of longer age expectancy, the value of the benefits for older workers has increased and with it- the burden on younger workers. “We’re supporting employees for longer periods of life when they’re not working,” Daly says. That’s where compromise comes from. Boomers are going to have to see that they can’t have all that. And younger workers are going to have to agree to pay for some of it.

Here are some Interesting statistics regarding the four generations:

As a % of the entire population in 2010-

Generation Y  (1980 -2000)- 28%       

Generation X (1965- 79- 20%      

Baby Boomers (1946 - m1964- 26%      

Silent Generation (1925- 1945)- 13%                                     

As a % of the workforce in 2010-

Generation Y- 25%        Generation X- 32%       Baby Boomers- 39%       Silent Generation- 5%                (1980-2000)                                   (1965 – 1979)                            (1946 – 1964)                   (1925 – 1945)

Note- The average monthly Social Security benefit in 2011 was:  $1,181 or a total  of $14,172/Yr.

So, now what do we do?  Daly says, “Some painful compromises will have to be made by both the younger generations and the older generations.”  Possibilities include a younger generation that sees more income going to support an older generation and/or a retiree generation that sees lower benefits than expected.

As a personal injury attorney I see family incomes heavily impacted by the loss of wages as a result of an injury and that will just complicate these social issues going forward.

But I think it’s time people start talking and thinking about potential solutions.

I invite you to let me know what you think and leave a comment below in the comment box.

I take a personal approach, listening carefully to the details of your case so that I can tailor your representation to get the results you seek.

For a Free Consultation call 727-475-6854.

I hope you found this information helpful. About every 2-3 weeks
or so I’ll provide additional meaningful articles regarding
personal injury issues and related legalities.

Until then, Be Careful Out There!

All My Best-

Bill Schneikart

Personal Injury Lawyer