The Impact of Drunk Driving in Texas

Around 1,500 Texans die each year in drunk driving accidents, accounting for nearly half of all driving deaths. Unfortunately, in 2010, that trend appears to be holding true. Earlier in the spring, a drunk driver killed a 41-year-old Houston motorcyclist. The drunk driver turned left in front of the oncoming motorcyclist. Witnesses said that the motorcyclist had the green light. Authorities have charged the driver of the green Mazda pickup truck with intoxication manslaughter.A few months earlier, another drunk driver killed a Time Warner cable worker as he worked on utility lines strung high above the ground. The 38-year-old worker was in the bucket above the ground when the drunk driver of a 2001 Isuzu Rodeo struck the back of the worker’s van. The accident ejected the worker from the elevated bucket and he fell to the ground. Emergency responders pronounced him dead at the scene. Authorities charged the Rodeo’s driver with intoxication manslaughter. If you or a loved one has been the victim of a drunk driver, a Lufkin injury lawyer is available to help you obtain compensation for your medical bills and suffering.

Texas Drunk Driving Numbers

• Texas usually leads the country as the state with the most alcohol-related driving deaths. In 2008, for example, Texas had 1,463 such deaths, a great deal more than the state in second place—California with 1,198. 1982 was the year Texas had the most drunken driver-caused deaths. It lost 2,801 Texans then.
• The legal limit in Texas is 0.08. Most adults reach this limit after just a couple of beers or alcoholic drinks.
• As mentioned above, just about half of all fatal crashes involve alcohol. This number soars for fatal crashes occurring after midnight and during the early morning hours. Over three-fourths of such accidents involve a drunk driver.
• Austin Police conducted a ‘Super Bowl no refusal’ initiative on February 7 between 9 p.m. and 5 a.m., during which they made 17 drunk driver arrests. The blood alcohol content of the drivers ranged from 0.15 to 0.28, substantially over Texas’s legal limit.

Obtaining Compensation for Injuries that Drunk Drivers Cause

The following are some of items for which you may be able to obtain compensation if a drunk driver has injured you:

• Medical bills. This includes expenses for ongoing treatment of severe and permanent injuries like physical therapy, as well as costly emergency room trips.
• Lost wages and loss of earning capacity. You can recover income that you lost while you were unable to work and future money you may never be able to earn because of the accident’s effect on your health.
• Wrongful death claims. If you lost a loved due to a drunk driver, you can pursue claims to cover medical expenses, funeral expenses, and lost wages and employment benefits.
• Punitive damages. In particularly egregious cases, a court may order extra damages (so-called punitive damages) against a defendant.

Contact a Lufkin injury attorney at Mike Love & Associates, LLC if a drunk driver has injured you or a loved one.

Holding Companies Responsible for Defective Products

Defective product lawsuits cover a wide range of problems that consumers experience. An Alabama woman sued Apple a couple years ago after she purchased an iPhone 3G because of advertisements touting “twice as fast for half the price.” When the woman started using the phone, however, she found that her internet connection, e-mail, and text messages were slower than what she expected and what Apple advertised. She claimed that the iPhone connected to the 3G standard less than 25% of the time and it frequently dropped her calls.Defective product lawsuits are more common when a product causes injury. Earlier this year, a jury rendered a $16 million verdict against Ford on behalf of a woman was paralyzed in a car accident. The woman was a passenger in the back seat of a Ford Explorer when the driver of another car caused the accident. During the collision, the rear seat latch failed, causing the seat to fold onto the woman and slamming her into the front console. The accident left her paralyzed from the neck down.The jury found that, based on the evidence, Ford knew about the dangers of the lap only seatbelts for more than 30 years given the company’s extensive crash test research. Ford failed to correct the problem, the jury found, by continuing to use lap seatbelts instead of safer shoulder ones. If a dangerous product has injured you, a Lufkin injury lawyer can help obtain compensation for your injuries and suffering.

When Companies are Responsible for Defective Products

The three, general areas in which companies can be negligent with their products are:

• Manufacturing defects. These occur during the manufacturing process and involve manufacturing decisions like the types of material or what processes to use. Using weak plastic, for example, instead of steel, as the design calls for, could jeopardize the safety of consumers who ultimately use the product.
• Design defects. Design defects are inherent flaws that occur regardless of a manufacturer’s actions. The manufacturer could take all the precautions in the world, but an inherent design defect will continue to manifest itself. For example, if a company designs a car without an important safety feature, that is a design defect. Regardless of what the manufacturer does, the car is inherently flawed.
• Failure to warn. Businesses owe a duty to their consumers to warn about their products’ dangers if the dangers are not obvious. If a certain shampoo, for instance, causes abnormally severe damage to eyes, the company that makes the shampoo must provide adequate warnings about the potential danger.

Defective products law is a large field, however, and these general areas do not account for all of the recent changes in the law. The doctrine of strict liability is becoming increasingly prevalent throughout the country. Strict liability holds manufacturers (and sometimes other parties) liable for defective products, even if the manufacturer was not negligent. Courts have moved in this direction in order to protect consumers.Contact a Lufkin injury attorney at Mike Love & Associates, LLC for more information about defective products and obtaining compensation for your injuries.

Preventing Texas Construction Site Injuries

Despite improvements in technology and workplace training and awareness, construction work remains one of the most dangerous fields of employment. Workers face a variety of dangers everyday they report to the job as demonstrated by recent injuries and deaths covered in the news across the country.Each of these examples occurred in the past few weeks. A Michigan man died in an accident while doing tree removal and operating a front-end loader. The man lost control of the machine while he was driving down a steep hill, which threw him from the cab. The machine then ran him over. A South Carolina man lost his arm in an accident while operating a forklift-like machine. He was driving the machine through a doorway when a beam then trapped his arm.Four Texas construction workers suffered serious injuries last month while they working on a county justice center in San Antonio. The ceiling of the building collapsed, burying the four men in debris until fire crews were able to pull the men free. Two of the workers suffered life-threatening injuries. Construction work can be dangerous. If unsafe work conditions or negligent behavior on the part of your employer has caused you injury, a Lufkin injury lawyer can review your case and determine whether you may be entitled to compensation.

Steps to Prevent Construction Site Injuries

US Department of Labor studies indicate that the fatal injury rate for the construction industry is higher than every other industry. Employers can take steps to avoid deaths and serious injury by examining how accidents are mostly likely to occur. Some of the areas frequently involved in accidents and steps to prevent such accidents include:

• Scaffolding. Scaffolding should be able to hold its own weight and four times the maximum intended load. Workers should never use unstable objects to support the scaffolding.
• Falls. Falls are typically the reason for most construction deaths. Employers should use guardrails with toe boards to protect workers near the edges. They should also employ safety net or personal fall arrest systems, which can prevent injury in the event that a worker does in fact fall.
• Forklifts. Forklift injuries and deaths account for a large number of the 100 workers killed and 95,000 injured every year while operating heavy machinery. Employers must thoroughly train all operators of such machinery. Operators should always follow safe operating procedures, and employers should have repercussions for safety violations.

The preceding examples are just a sampling of some of the dangers that construction workers face. Employers should be aware of many other dangers. If poor workplace safety has caused injury to you or a loved one, contact a Lufkin injury attorney at Mike Love & Associates, LLC to learn how you can obtain compensation.

Dealing with Texas Motorcycle Accidents

Unfortunately, hardly a week goes by in Texas without a newspaper story involving a motorcycle accident and serious injury or death. Texas averages around 300 to 500 motorcyclist deaths a year, most of which involve drivers’ not wearing a helmet. The US Department of Transportation estimated that, in Texas, wearing a helmet saves about 100 lives each year and that wearing a helmet could save another 100 if every motorcyclist wore a helmet.A Texas motorcyclist died this week after a collision with a public transit bus. Turning left, the bus failed to yield to the motorcyclist who then ran into the bus. The state trooper reported that the motorcyclist was not wearing a helmet and paramedics pronounced him as dead at the scene.A week prior, another Texas motorcyclist died in a high-speed accident despite wearing a helmet. The young, 21-year-old man lost control of his motorcycle while traveling at a high speed. The motorcycle skidded off the roadway but the man remained in the center of the road where a passing car struck and killed him. Motorcyclists face more dangers than other vehicles on the road so it is important to receive the help of a Lufkin injury attorney if have you been involved in a motorcycle accident.

Avoiding Motorcycle Accidents

The Texas Department of Public Safety reported that more than half of motorcycle accidents occur because another motorist did not see the motorcycle. Other drivers, and not the motorcyclist, are responsible for almost two-thirds of motorcycle accidents in Texas. Motorcyclist accidents often result in serious injuries to the motorcyclists and little damage to the other vehicle or its passengers. Consequently, motorcyclists should take steps to ensure that other motorists are aware of the motorcycle and the following are some helpful pointers:

• Be vigilant when approaching intersections and anytime a left turn is involved. Cars often turn left out in front of motorcycles because they are difficult to see. Nearly half of Texas motorcycle accidents occur at intersections.
• Stay out of a car’s blind spot. Just as car drivers should not stay in the blind spots of tractor-trailers, motorcycles, with their smaller size, make it difficult for drivers to spot them. Drivers can change lanes without seeing the motorcyclist.
• Slow down and drive more cautiously in inclement weather and poor road conditions. Motorcycles handle differently than cars and potholes, railroad tracks, and wet or icy roads are much more dangerous for motorcyclists than for drivers.
• Ride assuming that other motorists cannot see you. In this way, you can drive more cautiously and provide extra space and time in the event that an emergency arises and you need to react quickly.

The priority for a motorcyclist is to avoid accidents or coming anywhere even close to an accident because the motorcycle usually loses. Contact a Lufkin injury lawyer at Mike Love & Associates, LLC to learn how you can obtain compensation for your motorcycle injuries suffered because of the negligence of another driver.

Big Rig Truck Accidents in Texas

Recent big rig truck accidents in Texas demonstrate the dangers these trucks and negligent driver pose to Texas drivers. Last week, on Highway 75, a portion of the northbound lanes narrowed into a single lane. The cars slowed down, but a tractor trailer did not and ended up slamming into one car and then side-swiping another. Due the size and speed of the truck, even after these collisions, it did not slow down. It crossed the median into oncoming traffic before finally coming to a stop in the grass of a travel plaza. Police officers cited the truck driver for failure to control speed.A week earlier, a truck driver hauling gasoline failed to control his vehicle while making a turn. The 18-wheeler was hauling 7,200 gallons of gasoline. When the driver attempted to turn, the weight of the gasoline shifting was too much for him to handle, and the big rig fell onto its side, spilling about 1,500 gallons into the street. The accident shut down one of Houston’s busiest highways for about nine hours. Lufkin injury lawyers are available to assist you if you or a loved one has been hurt in a big rig trucking accident.

Truck Driver Negligence

The nature of big truck trucks themselves (their weight, maneuverability, load, etc.) contribute a lot to trucking accidents, but truck drivers also face a lot of stressors on their jobs that can contribute. Some of the factors relating to big rig trucks and truck drivers that contribute to truck accidents include:

• Pressure from truck drivers’ employers to make more and more deliveries and to make them on time. There are laws that regulate the time that drivers can spend on the road, the breaks they must take, and the weight load they can carry.
• Failure to perform a pre-trip inspection. Drivers are typically required to make sure that all of their brakes and settings are in order.
• Failure to secure the truck’s load. The example given above with the gasoline truck indicates that the truck’s load and how it shifts play huge roles in how the truck handles on the road. Transporting large amounts of gasoline, for instance, requires extra precautions on the part of the driver.
• Driver fatigue. Federal law permits drivers to drive up to sixteen hours a day, but many ignore this rule. Driving while fatigued is as dangerous as driving while under the influence of alcohol. Both lead to decreased reaction times and visual hallucinations.

Contact a Lufkin injury attorney at Mike Love & Associates, LLC for the guidance and assistance you need to deal with a tractor trailer accident.