Click It Or Ticket

Highway travel during the 2009 Thanksgiving Holiday week is expected to be heavy in the State of Tennessee as families pile into their cars and head off for holiday destinations. But there’s one sure recipe that can turn a joyful holiday into a tragedy, failure to buckle up.   State Troopers will be patrolling Tennessee Interstates and highways looking for drivers and passengers who are not wearing their seat belt. The message to travelers: “Click it or Ticket”.   The 2009 Thanksgiving Holiday period begins tonight at 6:00 p.m., and runs through midnight Sunday, November 29th.

From a Department of Safety press release; “Seat belts are the single most important safety device in your vehicle and they have saved countless lives and prevented untold numbers of injuries over the years,” said Department of Safety Commissioner Dave Mitchell. “TDOS urges everyone driving on our state’s roads this holiday to drive carefully, don’t drive impaired and, most important, buckle up each and every trip, night and day.”

Although safety belt usage climbed to 81.5 percent in 2008, more than 50 percent of people killed in Tennessee traffic crashes were not wearing a safety belt. Research shows that it’s almost nine times safer to wear your safety belt every time you get in the car.

“If you are planning to travel by car to celebrate the Thanksgiving Holiday with family and friends, make sure you and everyone riding with you buckles your seat belts,” stressed THP Colonel Mike Walker. “Whether you’re traveling across town, or across the state, if you or anyone in your vehicle is unbelted you run the risk of getting a little holiday present from a State Trooper or local law enforcement officer.”

Ten people were killed in crashes on Tennessee roads during the 2008 Thanksgiving Holiday weekend (102-hour holiday period). That is a decrease from 2007 when 13 people died and 20 fatalities in 2006. But six of the eight vehicle occupants who were killed during the 2008 Thanksgiving Holiday weekend were not wearing safety restraints.

From the staff and attorney’s at Phillip Miller & Associates we wish you a safe and joyful holiday season.

Distracted Driver Runs Stop Sign

These days, drivers are faced with so many distractions both outside the car as well as devices inside the vehicle that are supposed to help us accomplish more tasks and save us time. Often other activities, including talking to your passengers, eating dinner, talking on the cell phone, adjusting the radio, lighting a cigarette take place behind the wheel. Experts estimate that drivers are doing something potentially distracting more than 15 percent of the time their vehicles are in motion. Multi-tasking is not our friend when we are driving on the highways and by-ways of Tennessee.

At a minimum you are: operating a piece of heavy machinery at high speed; navigating across changing terrain; calculating speeds and distances; and responding to all the other drivers and obstacles around you. Adding one more activity in the mix can be enough to make you lose control of your vehicle or fail to respond in an emergency.

According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration driver inattention is the leading factor in most crashes. Nearly 80 percent of crashes and 65 percent of near-crashes involved some form of driver inattention within three seconds before the event.

We will probably never know what Mr. Larry W. Lynch, 64, of Bethel Springs was doing when he failed to stop at a stop sign and drove his pickup truck directly into the path of a tractor-trailer at the intersection of Highway 45 and Hopkins Road. The tractor-trailer driver, Jesse L. Greene, 38, of Kenton, who was wearing his seatbelt, was injured in the wreck, the extent of  his injuries were not reported in the article in the Jackson Sun. My sympathy goes out to the family and friends of Mr. Lynch and my hopes for a quick and complete recovery go out to Mr. Greene.

In the case of Mr. Green it’s critically important that he contact an experienced Tennessee automobile accident attorney because he has two important issues to deal with. He was probably an employee of the company for which he was driving so he has to go through the worker’s compensation issues and then he has to take a careful look at a personal claim against Mr. Lynch’s insurance carrier.

Think carefully about the statistics, 80% of all crashes are caused by a driver who was distracted within three seconds before the collision. This means that it up to us to keep our eyes and our minds on the task at hand when as we pilot a three thousand pound deadly weapon down the road. If you want to read some guidelines for becoming a safe driver, check out my blog of November 21, 2009.

If you or a loved one are injured in a Nashville automobile accident involving a distracted driver contact the experienced Nashville automobile accident attorney’s at Phillip Miller & Associates and take advantage of a free consultation to find out about your rights and remedies.

Rainy Conditions Require Caution

According to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention, every day, 36 people in the United States die, and approximately 700 more are injured, in motor vehicle crashes that involve an alcohol-impaired driver. The annual cost of alcohol-related crashes totals more than $51 billion. In 2006, 13,470 people died in alcohol-impaired driving crashes, accounting for nearly one-third (32%) of all traffic-related deaths in the United States. In 2007, over 1.4 million drivers were arrested for driving under the influence of alcohol or narcotics. That’s less than one percent of the 159 million self-reported episodes of alcohol-impaired driving among U.S. adults each year.

When police investigators find alcoholic beverages in the aftermath of a car accident and the facts indicate that the driver suddenly and unexpectedly left the highway and crossed into the oncoming lane, it might be safe to conclude that the wreck was alcohol related. Reference a situation reported on the website of the Johnson City-Press about a fatal collision on I-26 in which Jamin M. Dodd, 19, an underage driver died after his car veered from the road and hit the vehicle driven by Katie A. Flannery, 28, head on leaving her with serious but not life-threatening injuries. Investigators mentioned in the report that it was raining and Mr. Dodd might have hydroplaned.

In Tennessee possession of alcohol is limited to persons over the age of 21 and open containers are illegal for any driver no matter the age. Investigators are withholding a final report as to the cause of this accident until they complete the toxicology tests.

The CDC study went on to state that over the past 20 years, alcohol-related fatal crash rates have decreased by 60 percent for drivers ages 16 to 17 years and 55 percent for drivers ages 18 to 20 years, according to a study from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). However, this progress has stalled in the past few years. To further decrease alcohol-related fatal crashes among young drivers, communities need to implement and enforce strategies that are known to be effective, such as minimum legal drinking age laws and “zero tolerance” laws for drivers under 21 years of age. It’s also important for parents to be involved and set a good example for young drivers.

If you or a loved one is injured or killed in a Nashville automobile accident involving a drunk driver you owe it to yourself to contact the experienced the Nashville automobile accident attorney’s at Phillip Miller & Associates and take advantage of a free consultation so you can learn about your rights and remedies.

As an experienced Nashville accident and injury lawyer I have never seen a collision between a motorcyclist without a helmet and a tree come out in favor of the motrrcyclist.. My sympathies go out to the family of Darry D. Smith, 22, of Oneida, who, according to an article on the web site of WBIR TV in Knoxville, was with friends when he attempted to pull a wheelie on his 2009 Yamaha and lost control, ran into a ditch and was thrown from the bike against a tree.

While travel by motor vehicle has become steadily safer in the United States, motorcycles remain the most dangerous type of motor vehicle to drive. Motorcyclists are involved in fatal crashes at a rate of 35.0 per 100 million miles of travel compared with a rate of 1.7 per 100 million miles of travel in cars. In 2007, 5,154 motorcyclists were killed—an increase of 7 percent over the 4,837 motorcyclists killed in 2006. There were 103,000 motorcyclists injured during 2007. Motorcycles made up nearly 3 percent of all registered vehicles in the United States in 2006 and accounted for only 0.4 percent of all vehicle miles traveled. Per vehicle mile traveled in 2006, motorcyclists were about 35 times more likely than passenger car occupants to die in a motor vehicle traffic crash and 8 times more likely to be injured.

In Tennessee over 90% of motorcycle drivers in crashes from 2004 to 2008 were between the ages of 15 and 59. The number of motorcycle drivers in crashes has increased in every age group over 14 years old since 2004. As a percentage of all motorcycle drivers in crashes, drivers from ages 15 to 24 and 45 to 69 increased, while drivers between the ages of 25 and 44 decreased.

Motorcycles are not toys and should not be treated as if they were. If any good can come from a tragedy such as this it would be that others who knew and loved Mr. Smith will themselves practice motorcycle safety and use this incident to pass on the word to others.

If you or a loved one is injured or killed in a Tennessee motorcycle accident you owe it to yourself to contact the experienced Nashville accident attorney’s at Phillip Miller & Associates for a free consultation to find out about your rights and remedies.

Teach Teen Driving Safety

A couple of recent articles about teen driving caught my attention and I thought I might use this opportunity to share some tragic facts about teen fatalities. The first story was at the website of Volunteer TV WVLT in Knoxville. Three teen drivers in a car, lost control,  left the road and crashed into a tree. According to police reports all three of the teens are going to recover even though a young girl was trapped in the vehicle for over an hour. The second story in the Johnson City Press involved an underage teen girl, 15, who was driving a car when she lost control and hit a ditch and came to a stop against a culvert.

Although the facts at slim in both reports, there can only be a couple of reasons for these crashes. I suspect that speed, inexperience and driver distraction created a potentially fatal mix.

According to the Center for Injury Research and Prevention young drivers ages 16-20 years are at a disproportionately high risk for both fatal and non-fatal crashes, with the highest per capita and per-mile-driven crash rate of any age group. Motor vehicle crashes are the leading cause of teen deaths, accounting for 44% of teen fatalities in the U.S. If these crash fatalities continue without intervention, 100,000 adolescents and young adults will die in young driver crashes (drivers between the ages of 16 and 24 years) in the U.S. over the next 10 years.

It’s up to us to teach our teens that when you are operating a motor vehicle it’s time to put away the ways of children and take on the role of adults. See that you oversee the driving education of your children, teach by example, drive like you want your teens to drive. Practice safety, courtesy and good sense when you are behind the wheel, don’t text or talk on your cell phone. When you see a teen drivers acting the fool, call 911 or *847 for the Highway Patrol.

If you or a loved one is injured or killed in a Tennessee automobile accident involving a teen driver contact the experienced Nashville automobile accident attorney’s at Phillip Miller & Associates and take advantage of our free consultation to get an understanding of your rights and remedies.

Practice School Bus Safety

A thoughtful public school official in Alcoa, Tennessee listened to the district’s school bus drivers and conducted a study of dangerous areas along the school pick up and delivery routes. According to an article on the web site of WBIR a Knoxville TV station, Director of Schools, Tom Shamblin has suggested that the School Board to remove certain stops that were considered dangerous. A vote is scheduled for the December 15^th Board meeting. I rooting for the clear thinkers on the school board.

According to the National Safety Council In the selection of school sites, major consideration should be given to the safety of pupils riding school buses.  These vehicles will be forced to utilize the roads in and around the school site plus public highways leading into the school area.  High-density traffic flow near school exits and entrances due to the proximity of super highways, periodic commercial traffic or massive commuter traffic from industrial plans should be avoided. It is also suggested that boards of education solicit the help of school transportation professionals, school superintendents, traffic engineers, and other state officials in evaluating possible school sites.

According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration since 1996 there have been about 417,705 fatal motor vehicle traffic crashes. Of those, 0.33 percent (1,387) were classified as school transportation-related. Since 1996, 1,536 people have died in school transportation-related crashes, an average of 140 fatalities per year. Most of the people who lost their lives in those crashes (72%) were occupants of other vehicles involved. Non-occupants (pedestrians, bicyclists, etc.) accounted for 20 percent of the deaths, and occupants of school transportation vehicles accounted for 7 percent.

It’s up to clear thinking public officials to address these issues and it is our responsibility as motor vehicle operators to do our part in making the roads safe for our children. Teach your children school bus safety, teach your teen drivers to pay particular attention in school zones and by all means make yourself a good example to others. If you see a driver acting dangerously dial 911 or *847 for the Tennessee State Troopers.

If you or a loved one is injured in a Tennessee school bus crashes you owe it to yourself and your family to take advntage of a free consultation with one of the experienced Nashville automobile accident attorney’s at Phillip Miller & Associates and find out about your rights and remedies.

Keep Your Mind On Your Driving

Lately a number of my blogs have discussed drivers who are driving along a Tennessee highway and for some reason become distracted and leave the road. Usually they cross into the oncoming lane and injure or kill another driver or pedestrians, or they hit obstruction on their side of the highway. According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration driver inattention is the leading factor in most crashes. Nearly 80 percent of crashes and 65 percent of near-crashes involved some form of driver inattention within three seconds before the event. An accident like this can happen so quickly because the vehicle is usually moving at speed.

Today I’d like to reference two accidents that occurred in Tennessee this weekend that point out another type of distracted driver, that driver is one who is stopped at a traffic sign and then pulls out into oncoming traffic. This type of driver has seemingly all the time in the world to look both ways and make an informed judgment as to the proper time to enter the roadway, but yet, they pull out anyway.

The first of these accidents left an Ooltewah woman, Rhonda L. Morgan, 23, dead at the scene the other driver Vernon Norwood, 67, an Illinois resident injured.  According to an article on the website of the Chattanooga Times Free-Press, Ms. Morgan was stopped at an intersection before she pulled out right into the path of Mr. Norwood’s Chevrolet truck. My prayers go out to the family and friends of Ms. Morgan.

The second collision had a somewhat better outcome because no one died. The details are sketchy but from the article on the website of Knoxville TV station WBIR it appears that the driver of a large box truck towing another vehicle pulled out of a private driveway in front of an oncoming pickup truck. The pick up clipped the left rear end of the box truck causing it to flip over.

To start off this discussion, I want to point out that both Ms. Morgan and the driver of the box truck had a duty to yield to oncoming traffic. That duty entails watching and waiting until it was safe to enter the highway. Both of these drivers were obviously distracted by something and failed to yield. Primary causes of driver inattention are distracting activities, such as cell phone use, and drowsiness.

If you’re driving your vehicle, you are already multitasking. At a minimum you are: operating a piece of heavy machinery; navigating across changing terrain; calculating speeds and distances; and responding to all the other drivers and obstacles around you. Putting one more activity in the mix, even talking to your passengers or changing a radio station, can be enough to make you lose control of your vehicle or fail to respond in an emergency.

The lesson here for Nashville drivers is that you must keep all of your attention on the acting of driving and avoid distractions. You never know when another driver is going to fall asleep, have a medical emergency or get distracted and leave their lane and initiate a deadly collision.

If you or a loved one is injured or killed in a Tennessee automobile accident involving a distracted driver you owe it to yourself to take advantage of a free consultation and speak with one of the experienced Nashville automobile accident attorney’s at Phillip Miller & Associates and find out about your rights and remedies.

Safe Driving Pays Off

At lunch the other day one of my friends posed the question, “What steps can be taken to make me a safe driver?” I’ve been thinking about that question since then and then I read an article on the web site for the AAA Foundation For Traffic Safety which I’d like to share with you. Although nothing can make you 100% safe as you cruise the highways and byways of Tennessee these tips might just save a life.

Tips to Being a Heads Up Driver

1. PLAN AHEAD – Read maps and check traffic conditions before you get on the road.

2. STOW ELECTRONIC DEVICES-  Turn off your phone before you drive so you won’t be tempted to use it while on the road. Pull over to a safe place to talk on the phone or to send and receive text messages or emails.

3. PREPARE KIDS AND PETS FOR THE TRIP-  Get the kids safely buckled in and situated with snacks and entertainment before you start driving. If they need additional attention during the trip, pull off the road safely to care for them. Similarly, prepare and secure pets appropriately in your vehicle before getting underway.

4. SATISFY THAT CRAVING OFF THE ROAD-  Eat meals and snacks before getting behind the wheel, or stop to eat and take a break if driving long-distance.

5. STORE LOOSE GEAR AND POSSESSIONS-  Stash away loose objects that could roll around and take your attention away from driving.

6. GET YOUR VEHICLE ROAD-READY-  Adjust seat positions, climate controls, sound systems and other devices before you leave or while your vehicle is stopped.  Make sure your headlights are spotless so you can see everything on the road and every other driver can see you better. Keep your windshield clean and remove dangling objects that could block your view.

7. DRESS FOR SUCCESS – BEFORE YOU GET IN THE CAR-  Your car isn’t a dressing room.  Brush your hair, shave, put on make-up, and tie your necktie before you leave or once you reach your destination.

8. GET YOUR BRAIN IN THE GAME-  Focus on the task at hand, driving safely. Scan the road, use mirrors and practice identifying orally what you just saw to enhance your engagement as a driver. Really focusing on maintaining your thoughts about the road, when you’re on the road, can help you improve your overall awareness and behavior as a driver, and help you see the importance of ‘being in the game.’

9. EVALUATE YOUR OWN BEHAVIOR FROM THE ‘OTHER’ SIDE OF THE ROAD-  When you’re on the road as a passenger or a pedestrian, take a look around and honestly evaluate whether you engage in poor driving behaviors that worry you when observed in other passengers or pedestrians.

Even if you use all of these suggestions there is no guarantee that something bad won’t happen but if each and every one of us would practice these simple safety principles the fatality rates would decrease quickly. If you have teen age drivers think of the example you are showing them.

If you or a loved one is injured in a Tennessee automobile accident you owe it to yourself to take advantage of a free consultation with an experienced Tennessee accident lawyer from Phillip Miller & Associates.

Yesterday I was driving through South Central Kentucky and I heard a radio news report about a nearby single-car  accident involving two teenagers. Details were sketchy but the gist of the article was that the 17-year old driver left the road, overcorrected and causing the car to roll and cross the highway into oncoming traffic.

Later that same night I was watching the evening news on Nashville NewsChannel 5 and heard about an incident in which an 18-year old driver hit a 7-year old pedestrian near Centerville, Tennessee. I was reminded of a recent report by the AAA Foundation for Traffic and Highway Safety which I recently shared with my staff.

The AAA Study looked at the number of people, other than the teen driver, who have died in crashes involving young drivers, such as teen drivers’ passengers, drivers and passengers of other vehicles, pedestrians, and bicyclists. The findings are interesting. Nearly two other individuals are killed for every teen driver killed.

The AAA Foundation analyzed data on fatal motor vehicle crashes from 1998 through 2007 and identified all fatal crashes involving a 15, 16, or 17-year-old driver of a passenger vehicle. Over the 10 years from 1998 through 2007, there were 24,655 drivers ages 15 through 17 involved in fatal crashes. These crashes killed 28,138 people, of whom 10,388 (36.9%) were the 15, 16, and 17-year-old drivers themselves. However, the majority of  fatalities in those crashes (63.1%) were people other than those drivers, and included 8,829 of their passengers, 6,858 occupants of vehicles operated by drivers age 18 or older, and 2,063 non-motorists and others.

On a positive note, the number of young drivers involved in fatal crashes each year decreased substantially over the years analyzed, with 776 fewer drivers age 15 to 17 involved in fatal crashes in 2007 than in 1998, resulting in the deaths of 311 fewer young drivers and 540 fewer deaths of other people in 2007 than in 1998.

We are all deeply effected by teen driving accidents but we can also play a roll in preventing them by being good driving mentors to our children.

Teen Driving Safety

If you or a loved one is injured in a Tennessee automobile accident involving a teen driver you owe it to yourself to contact the experienced Tennessee Automobile accident attorney’s at Phillip Miller & Associates and take advantage of a free consultation so that you can learn about your rights and remedies.

The Federal Highway Administration recently announced it will conduct “the first major in-depth analysis of motorcycle safety in nearly three decades.” The study will be conducted by researchers at Oklahoma State University’s Oklahoma Transportation Center, which is one of the Department of Transportation’s 10 National University Transportation Centers. A provision in the Safe, Accountable, Flexible, EfficientTransportation Equity Act: A Legacy for Users required the study, but its launch was delayed due to funding issues. Researchers plan to evaluate data from motorcycle crashes to help identify common factors, which FHWA officials said will be useful to find countermeasures. The last motorcycle causation study was completed in 1981 by NHTSA. In September, NHTSA concluded a pilot study on motorcycle crash causes and outcomes. DOT spokesperson Rae Tyson said completion of the pilot study was necessary to help OSU researchers establish research criteria for the upcoming study.

According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) per vehicle mile traveled in 2006, motorcyclists were about 35 times more likely than passenger car occupants to die in a motor vehicle traffic crash and 8 times more likely to be injured. Speeding, traveling too fast for conditions or in excess of the posted speed limit, is a factor in almost one-third of all fatal crashes and costs America approximately $27.7 billion dollars in economic losses each year. Speeding is a safety concern on all roads, regardless of their speed limits. Much of the public concern about speeding has been focused on high-speed Interstates. The Interstate System, however, actually has the best safety record of all roads and the lowest fatality rate of all road classes.

Motorcycle Safety Study

Collector roads usually have legal speed limits of 55 mi/h or less. Speed limits on local roads are often 35 mi/h or lower.

If you or a family member is injured in a Tennessee motorcycle accident you owe it to your self to contact the experienced Tennessee motorcycle accident attorney’s at Phillip Miller & Associates and take advantage of a free consultation to learn about your rights and remedies.