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National Highway Traffic Safety Administration Rules

Every car accident that results in a death is a tragedy especially due to gm recall lawsuits. Imagine, though, being the father of the 2-year-old who gave his name to a safety bill. This man went out late one night to turn his vehicle around — it would be safer when he left in the morning if he didn’t have to back up while kids were nearby. His life changed completely in the few seconds that followed: He backed up, and his headlights illuminated a horrific sight. He had backed over and killed his son.

The story inspired a bill, the Cameron Gulbransen Kids Transportation Safety Act, that was signed into law in 2008. A rule proposed by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration will address one key provision of the law: to eliminate blind zones behind vehicles.

According to NHTSA research, 300 people are killed in back-over accidents each year, and another 18,000 are injured. Children under the age of 5 account for about half of the deaths, and people over 70 make up a third. Other organizations estimate that every week back-overs injure 50 children, and two die of their injuries.
Not surprisingly, most of the accidents occur in driveways or parking lots. But the most heart-wrenching statistic of all is that the driver in 70 percent of these accidents is a direct relative.
While the proposed regulation does not specifically name rearview cameras, the requirement to eliminate the blind zone can really only be addressed with such a system. Carmakers support the new rule, but some have expressed concerns over the cost involved.

They are not without data to work from. About 20 percent of all 2010 passenger cars, SUVs, minivans, pickup trucks and other vehicles weighing up to 10,000 pounds — the vehicles covered by the rule — are equipped with rearview cameras. And, in an effort to keep costs manageable, the requirement will be phased in over the next few model years. By 2014, all vehicles must be in compliance and if they aren’t, you can find a lawyer that sues gm.

Brain Injury After Shootings

In January, we wrote about the brain injury suffered by Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords. As you recall, she was one of the victims of a gunman’s shooting spree. She was shot in the head. For several weeks, people in Portland and everywhere else followed her progress with her portland personal injury.

Her surgeons used a procedure that had fallen out of favor: a craniectomy. More popular now, especially in war zones, the procedure involves removing a piece of skull to relieve pressure on the brain. Recently, word got out that her surgeons are preparing to reattach that piece of skull — a significant milestone in the congresswoman’s recovery.
After the piece of skull was removed, it was stored in a freezer at very, very low temperatures. The low temperatures ward off infection and keep the bone from deteriorating. When the brain has healed sufficiently, and doctors are confident the swelling won’t recur, the piece of bone is taken from cold storage and reattached to the patient’s skull.
The procedure is a cranioplasty, and it takes about two hours. Surgeons attach the piece of skull with microplates and screws. Over time, the bones knit together. The skull is whole again.

What surgeons say is most rewarding about the procedure is the reaction of the patients. Helmets can come off. Hands can touch heads. And patients, according to one neurosurgeon, respond with a big smile.
The exact date for the congresswoman’s surgery hasn’t been announced. Her doctors have only reported amazing progress, though, so the date may not be far off.

Two die in Wednesday’s truck accident in Laurel

A Maryland woman and a Delaware man died in a truck accident Wednesday morning. WGMD reports that the accident happened when the Maryland woman’s Plymouth Neon pulled onto the path of a tractor trailer around 7:40 a.m. The accident occurred on the corner of Route 24 and Old Stage Road in Laurel and is being investigated as being a GM defective vehicle lawsuit.

The 51-year-old woman and the 47-year-old man were pronounced dead at the scene. The driver of the tractor trailer was not injured.

The crash closed Route 24 for several hours while Delaware state police officers investigated. Police do not believe that that alcohol was a contributing factor in the accident.

Traffic accidents involving tractor trailers frequently involve greater injuries and motorist death because tractor trailers are significantly larger than average passenger vehicles.

In situations where the tractor trailer driver is at fault, a motorist may be able to recover damages for injuries through a personal injury lawsuit. Families of truck accident victims killed in crashes can also receive compensation through wrongful death lawsuits.

Wednesday’s accident occurred when the tractor trailer was traveling eastbound on Route 24, also known as Laurel Road. Police reports indicate that the Plymouth Neon stopped at a stop sign on northbound Old Stage Road and Route 24, but that Neon pulled into the path of the tractor trailer, presumably to make a turn.

The tractor trailer had the right of way. The tractor trailer smashed into the Neon’s driver’s side door and killed the woman and the man. The man was initially wrongly indentified as a 56-year-old male by police officers.

Marley Mellow Mood Drink Makes Nj Students Sick

Bob Marley fans may have taken his song titled “African Herbsman” a little too far in creating Marley’s Mellow Mood, a drink promoted to reduce stress. Several students in New Jersey ended up getting sick due to consuming the drink that is supposed to cause relaxation, not regurgitation.

The defective product was not approved to be distributed at Satz Middle School and Holmdel High School in New Jersey, and an on-site manager of the dining services has subsequently been relieved of duties.

While there are growing concerns across the United States with energy drinks and the growing number of wrongful death suits, this is the first indication that this drink intended to induce a relaxation amongst its consumers may also have detrimental side-effects. With the increase in concerns by parents whose kids seem to rely more and more heavily on energy drinks to function at a high level for extended periods of time, the FDA has begun its own investigations.

Officials for the FDA have said that reports of these deaths and injuries do not necessarily have a definitive correlation to the drinks consumed and evidence so far is inconclusive. They stress that these products should in no way, shape, or form be used as a replacement for adequate rest.

The drink does state in its nutritional facts that it may cause drowsiness and is not intended for children. Such warnings are intended to protect product manufacturers, yet in some instances, they can still be held accountable for defective products. Should you ever be a victim of a defective product, please reach out to experienced NJ lawyers for assistance.

Pennsylvania company’s driver killed in construction accident

A 51-year-old truck driver working for a Pennsylvania company has died in a construction accident on the New Jersey Turnpike near Bordentown.

The incident occurred recently when the driver was preparing to unload a concrete barrier at a site on the turnpike. The concrete barriers are used to guide traffic during construction, and can weigh up to 12 tons. The man, who drove the truck carrying the barriers, was reportedly about to unload the barriers near a crane and had just finished maneuvering the truck into position.

As he was unlatching the straps and binders that secure the barriers, one of them apparently fell off the flatbed truck and onto the man, instantly crushing him. The man was pronounced dead at the scene of the accident, according to reports.

Tipton Trucking, the company the man worked for that’s based in Oxford, Pennsylvania, said there were safety officials on the scene, and State Police and other agencies are investigating. The Occupational Safety and Health Administration have been notified of the incident as well.

According to NJ.com, co-workers at the construction site expressed shock after the accident due to the truck driver’s experience and familiarity with hauling the barriers, as he had worked with the company for over a year prior to the accident.

This was the first fatal accident during the four years that Tipton Trucking Company had been working on the project. Tipton Trucking is a subcontractor for South State Inc., which is responsible for the Turnpike widening project.

Grandparents safer drivers than parents while transporting kids

It’s a little puzzling. In general, older people are more likely to get into accidents than young people. Yet a new study out, led by researchers from Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, shows that children are less likely to be injured in car accidents if their grandparents are driving, rather than their parents.

The study was reportedly the first that compared parent drivers and grandparent drivers. Researchers studied insurance claims from 15 states plus the District of Columbia for a period of four years. For crashes involving children 15 or younger, they took a look at whether a grandparent or parent was at the wheel and how bad the crashes were.

The surprising statistics show that while grandparents drove in 10 percent of those accidents, they accounted for only 6.6 percent of the children’s injuries. The rest were caused by parent drivers. The injury rate per 100 occupants was reportedly 1.05 percent for parent drivers, and only 0.7 percent for grandparents. The injury rate was lower, despite the fact that grandparents were less likely to use proper restraints, including booster or car seats.

So if the elderly are generally more dangerous drivers, how can this be? According to FOX News, one possible explanation is that when grandparents are driving, they are constantly thinking about the responsibility of carting around young ones. It’s possible they take a more cautious approach to driving than parents do, since parents do it practically every day.

It wasn’t reported if further studies would take place, but with the surprising findings, researchers might want to delve a little deeper into the matter.

Two die in Hatboro when car crash sets home on fire

A Montgomery County family escaped with their lives and little else after a vehicle crashed into their home in the middle of the night, setting it ablaze. The car accident that made the five-member family homeless is still under investigation.

It took an entire day for police to identify the two victims of a fiery crash that began when a vehicle smashed into a Hatboro family’s car and then their home. Investigative reports say police don’t yet know what caused a 26-year-old Philadelphia woman to lose control of her car in the early morning hours.

Police have been able to find out that the car driver was traveling westbound when she crashed into a vehicle parked in the driveway of a home at Fitch and Byberry Roads. The car then careened into a residence, triggering a fast-spreading fire. Reports say the car driver and her 27-year-old male passenger died at the scene of severe burns and smoke inhalation.

A photo posted to NBC Philadelphia’s website shows the charred scene. The home is barely recognizable as once inhabitable.

The accident and fire occurred just after 1:40 a.m. one day last week, consuming the home quickly and allowing only a short time for a couple and their three children to escape. No one in the residence was injured, but the family lost their home and is staying with relatives. Money is being raised by members of the community to help them start over.

Police and fire investigators are continuing to study what happened. So far, details of any possible reason that the Philadelphia driver failed to maintain control of her vehicle have not been made public.

In study, rats with spinal injuries regained ability to walk

As we have mentioned before on this blog, motor vehicle accidents can be very harmful. Sometimes, such accidents result in an individual suffering spinal cord injuries. A spinal cord injury can sometimes result in an individual suffering paralysis. Paralysis can have major impacts on a person’s life.

Recently, a study was conducted on rats that involved paralysis-causing spinal cord injuries. The study had fairly encouraging results.

The study was conducted by researchers from Switzerland and was recently published online in “Science,” a journal. In the study, researchers took 10 rats that had paralyzed hind legs due to having their spinal cord cut (but not completely severed) and had these rats undergo a training course. The training course reportedly involved having the rats work out, giving them certain drugs and giving electrical stimulation to their spine and brain.

According to the article on the New York Times’ website which reported on this study, all ten of these rats regained the ability to walk within six weeks of starting this training course. This is a fairly impressive result.

Given the study’s results, it appears that the training course that the researchers in this study developed could potentially help certain spinal cord injury victims. Reportedly, the researchers are currently in the process of trying to develop the systems necessary for them to be able to test the training course on humans. One wonders when such a test will be conducted and what effects the training course would have on humans with spinal cord injuries.

Police: Trucker’s inattention contributed to fatal New York bus crash

Newburgh residents understand the high-speed dangers of driving on highways. But even the most cautious, experienced driver has difficulty contending safely with other drivers who are inattentive.

According to the New York State Police, driver inattention is partly to blame for the horrific accident involving a tour bus and an 18-wheeler that left the trucker dead and 30 others injured about 250 miles northwest of Newburgh.

The New York State Thruway crash was also caused in part by mechanical problems, according to the state police report.

The July 22 collision left the 59-year-old truck driver dead, as well as 30 of the 53 people on the bus injured. Two people on the bus were critically injured.

The primary cause of the crash was the trucker’s inattention, investigators concluded.

“Either he fell asleep, or he was inattentive in some way. Maybe he spilled coffee on himself, or was reaching around in his sleeper berth to get something and he wasn’t paying attention and didn’t see or realize the bus was in the roadway up ahead of him,” a state police investigator said. 

He added that they believe it’s most likely that the Michigan trucker fell asleep behind the wheel.

An accident witness said the trucker had ample room with which to avoid the bus.

“The bus was clearly visible,” said the investigator.

The bus had pulled over with mechanical problems and was having trouble getting back up to speed as its driver attempted to get back on the highway. The bus driver was steering the vehicle back to the shoulder when it was struck from behind by the truck carrying a 14,000-pound load.

The report we read didn’t indicate whether any injury victims are seeking green bay workers compensation for medical bills, lost wages and other damages from either the trucking company or the bus company.

Another fatal New York tour bus crash

If the dangers posed by fatigued drivers of tour buses hadn’t been made clear before, they certainly have been made painfully clear in 2011. The latest in a string of fatal bus accidents happened yesterday when a bus driver was killed when the tour bus he drove slammed into a flatbed tractor-trailer.

About two dozen others, including bus passengers and the truck driver, were injured in the crash on the Pennsylvania Turnpike. The bus was making its way from Kentucky to New York City.

The charter bus carried 56 people when it rear-ended the rig just before 7:30 in the morning.

The 39-year-old bus driver, who is from New York, died in the wreck.

An area newspaper report stated that the passengers were of Asian descent and that there were communication problems between rescuers and passengers after the crash. Apparently the group’s translator was among those injured and hospitalized.

According to the report, federal records indicate that the Mr. Ho Charter Service bus company is over the threshold for citations for fatigued drivers. The threshold is 50 percent of drivers cited; the company’s score was 68.9 percent.

In March of this year, 15 people were killed in a crash of a casino gambling tour bus on a New York highway.

The bus was returning to New York City from a trip to a Connecticut casino.

Just two days later, a pair of people were killed when a bus driven by a New York resident crashed in New Jersey.

Last month, four more people were killed when a bus from North Carolina crashed on its way to New York City when the driver fell asleep. That company, like the company involved in yesterday’s crash, had a history of drivers being cited for fatigued driving.