According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, teenage drivers (age 16 to 19) are three times more likely to be involved in a fatal crash than drivers over the age of 20. In the face of these statistics, the Wisconsin Senate has passed a bill which would limit…
In California, an appellate court is being asked to consider whether a texting driver can be held liable for punitive damages. Punitive damages are intended to punish the wrongdoer and, hopefully, deter others from engaging in the same harmful conduct. In the texting while driving context, the argument is that…
Today, Tennessee saw a historic change in its liquor laws. The House passed a bill to allow grocery stores to sell wine. The Senate had previously passed its version of the bill last month and proponents anticipate the Senate will approve the minor changes made by the House. As for the final…
If you are of a certain age, you probably remember the Jetsons, a Saturday morning cartoon about the future, in which George Jetson drove a vehicle that flew, basically drove itself and avoided crashes with other vehicles and things. Well, according to the United States Department of Transportation, we may soon…
According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, more than 100,000 police-reported accidents each year are directly attributable to driver fatigue. And this figure is almost certainly low because some states do not have coding for fatigue or driver fell asleep and if fatigue is combined with another factor, such as…
While the numbers are only preliminary, the Tennessee Department of Safety has released the statistics on crash fatalities for Tennessee in 2013. The news is wonderful: traffic fatalities dropped from 1015 in 2012 to 988 in 2013. That is 27 families who did not suffer the pain and turmoil of losing…
Let’s start this discussion with how the law handles sudden emergencies. Tennessee law recognizes that a driver faced with an unexpected or sudden emergency which calls for immediate action is unlikely to exercise the same good judgment as a driver who is operating his vehicle under normal circumstances. In the past,…
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has published some staggering statistics on teenage drivers. Here are just a few of them: 1. In 2010, seven teenagers were killed every single day as a result of injuries sustained in a car accident. 2. Compared to drivers who are 20 years and older, teenage…
The National Transportation Safety Board describes wrong-way accidents as the most serious type of accident on the highway with fatality rates higher than any other types of accidents. More than half and possibly as high as three-quarters of all wrong-way accidents are alcohol-related. In fact, 9% of wrong-way drivers had been convicted…
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, motor vehicle crashes are one of the leading causes of death in the United States. Each year millions of people are treated in emergency rooms for injuries sustained in motor vehicle accidents, and injuries and deaths from car and truck accidents have…