Red Still Means Stop

As an experienced Nashville automobile accident attorney I know that no matter how careful you are when you are behind the wheel, you must remain on the the lookout for the other drivers. Never expect the other drivers to do what they are supposed to do.

A lesson in point from Clarksville, Tennessee, one person was killed and two injured in a wreck at 101st Airborne Division Parkway and Trenton Road Tuesday night when a tractor-trailer ran a red light and smashed into a Lexus.

A tractor trailer from the Dickson Carnival Co., based in Slayden, Tenn., was going south on Trenton Road when it ran the light and broadsided a Lexus that was going east on 101st Parkway. Another car, a black Nissan was also involved.

The Lexus driver died at the scene. The driver of the tractor-trailer, a 73-year-old man, and one other person were transported by ambulance to Gateway Medical Center. Our prayers go out to the, as of yet, unnamed victim and her family and friends.

What caused the man to run the light is the focus of the police investigators. A blood test will determine whether he was under the influence, a medical examination will focus on whether he had some sort of medical emergency, a review of his DOT log book will indicate whether he might have fallen asleep or was distracted by a cell phone or other electronic device.

If you or a loved one are injured or killed in a Nashville intersection accident caused by a red light runner, contact the experienced Nashville personal injury attorney’s at Phillip Miller & Associates and find out about your rights and remedies. Call 615-356-2000.

Enjoy The Game And The Ride Home

With football season beginning over the Memorial Day holiday it’s a good time to remind fans of the dangers of drinking and driving. As and experienced Tennessee automobile accident attorney, I have reviewed a number of studies and witnessed the facts first hand, that the drinking and driving that goes on during and after college games poses a very dangerous public health threat.

If you plan to drink alcohol while rooting for their team, whether it’s a tailgate event, bar or party, you need to see that they have a sober designated driver or else face some serious criminal and civil consequences. Also keep in mind that if you throw a pre or post game party and you serve alcohol to your guests, and the guests are drunk and drive and crash and hurt or kill someone you will certainly find yourself on the receiving end of a personal injury lawsuit.

Studies show:

A 2009 University of Colorado study found that college football home games were associated with a 13 percent increase in DUI arrests in areas surrounding the stadiums.

A University of Minnesota study that involved the results of breathalyzer exams of adults after baseball and football games, found that eight percent of the fans recorded blood-alcohol content (BAC) levels above the legal limit of .08 percent, while fans under the age of 35 were nine times more likely to be legally drunk after the game than others.

These and other studies make clear that if you are going to drink you ought not get behind the wheel. In Tennessee we continue to see a tragic number of people with debilitating injuries and deaths as a result of impaired driving.

This careless disregard for human life must stop. To help ensure that happens, the Tennessee Highway Patrol and local and county police are dedicated to arresting impaired drivers wherever and whenever they find them. Drunk driving is one of America’s deadliest crimes. In Tennessee in 2008, 327 people were killed in crashes where the driver or motorcyclist had a blood alcohol concentration (BAC) of .08 or higher.

If you or a loved one is injured or killed in a Tennessee automobile accident caused by a drunk driver and you hope to recover all of the damages the law allows you need to consult with an experienced Tennessee automobile accident attorney like those at Phillip Miller & Associates. We offer a free consultation so that you can gain the information you will need to face this odyssey through the legal system.

Watch Out for Motorcycles

In traffic following the NASCAR race at Bristol a motorcyclist was injured when a pickyp ruck made an unexpected left turn directly in front of him at the intersection of U.S. Highway 19E and U.S. Highway 321.

The 70-year-old pickup driver made a left turn from Highway 321 into the path of the motorcycle, he was charged with failure to yield. The injured motorcyclist was transported by the Carter County Rescue Squad to the Johnson City Medical Center for treatment.

More crashes happen at intersections than at any other place. Intersections constitute a very small part of rural and urban street/highway systems, yet they are implicated in 31.9 percent of all motor vehicle crashes and 15.5 percent of all fatal crashes (2004 NHTSA data). Be very careful when approaching any intersection or driveway. Never assume another driver will yield the right-of-way to you. Always be prepared to stop.

“Traffic checks” is the process of looking frequently and carefully for vehicle traffic approaching from each direction. “Traffic checks” is especially important when merging or changing lanes AND when approaching and crossing intersections.

If you or anyone you know has been injured or killed in a Tennessee car accident, please contact Nashville injury attorney Phillip Miller and the Tennessee personal injury attorneys at Phillip Miller and Associates at (615) 356-2000, or contact our office online here.

One last thing: If you are hurt and have any questions at all, contact our office at (615) 356-2000. Don’t delay. Cases involving personal injury or death in Tennessee must be acted on quickly. Time is running. Call for an appointment, if it’s bad enough that you need to read this far into a website blog, it’s bad enough to get an attorney involved.

Yield To Emergency Vehicles

Emergency vehicles, such as ambulances, when in service will notify other drivers by means of a visual, flashing blue or flashing blue and red lights, and/or an audible signal. Under the Tennessee Rules of the Road, a driver should yield to in service emergency vehicles

In Erin, Tennessee two people were sent to the hospital after a crash involving an a car and an ambulance in Houston County Tennessee. The crash happened around 5 p.m. Friday on Highway 49 in Erin. Local media reports tell us that it’s unclear whether the ambulance had it’s emergency lights lit-up when another vehicle ran into it.

Both drivers were transported to Vanderbilt Medical Center and their condition is unknown at this time. As an experienced Nashville personal injury lawyer I always suggest that drivers should exercise special care when you come upon an ambulance.

Have you or a loved one been injured in a Nashville motorcycle accident or auto accident as a result of distracted driving or other negligent driving?  If so, you should call the experienced Nashville personal injury lawyers at Phillip Miller & Associates, a Nashville motorcycle accident lawyer from our law firm will fight to help you win. We will treat you with the utmost compassion and respect. Call us today and speak with an experienced Nashville personal injury lawyer to discuss the details of your case. Call (615) 356-2000.

Poor Roadway Design

In the last 15 years, more than 76,000 Americans have been killed while crossing or walking along a street in their community. Children, the elderly and ethnic minorities are disproportionately represented in this figure, but people of all ages and all walks of life have been struck down in the simple act of walking.

These deaths typically are labeled “accidents,” and attributed to error on the part of motorist or pedestrian. In fact, however, an overwhelming proportion share a similar factor: They occurred along roadways that were dangerous by design, streets that were engineered for speeding cars and made little or no provision or people on foot, in wheelchairs or on a bicycle.

During this same period, there has been a growing recognition that walking and bicycling, what many now refer to as “active transportation”, are critical to increasing levels of healthy exercise and reducing obesity and heart disease. At the same time, it has become increasingly clear that these clean, human-powered modes of transportation are an essential part of efforts to limit the negative impacts of traffic congestion, oil dependency and climate change.

In recent years, community after community has begun to retrofit poorly designed roads to become complete streets, adding sidewalks and bicycle lanes, reducing crossing distances and installing trees and crosswalks to make walking and biking safer and more inviting. The resulting safer streets have saved the lives of both pedestrians and motorists even as they promote health by leading many residents to become more physically active.

If you or a loved one are injured in a pedestrian of bicycle/car accident you ought to call us at Phillip Miller & Associates and find out about your rights and remedies. Call 615-356-2000.

Protect Your Babies

A child was killed and four people were injured in an accident near Kenton, Tennessee on Tuesday. Local media reports say, a 47-year-old Kenton woman was traveling southbound on Highway 45, near the intersection of Taylor Road, in a Ford SUV being followed by a tractor-trailer when a Chevrolet Blazer driven by a 22-year-old woman from Tulsa, Okla., traveling northbound, crossed the center line and struck the SUV, knocking the mirror off the vehicle.

Her vehicle continued into the southbound lane, striking the tractor-trailer head on and then exiting the east edge of the road before coming to a final rest facing east. She and one of two children, who were passengers in the vehicle, were ejected. The woman was not wearing a seat belt. The tractor-trailer also exited the east edge of the road before coming to a final rest facing east.

A male child, aged 10 months, of Tulsa was killed in the accident. He was not in a safety restraint, according to the report. Safety restraints would have made a difference in the accident, according to the THP report. The other child, aged 2, of Tulsa, who was injured, was not wearing a safety restraint either. All three drivers were all injured in the accident.

Reports indicate the young Tulsa woman was apparently under the influence of drugs at the time of the accident. Tests have been requested.

Where does one start analyzing this tragic situation? The woman had two babies in her care and she didn’t take time to secure them in their safety seats. Police believe the dead child would have survived had he been secured. The woman is driving under the influence of drugs and for some reason she took her eyes off the road for a long enough time to cross the centerline. My prayers go out to the family of this child and his mother. The deaths were totally preventable.

If you or a loved one is injured or killed in a Tennessee automobile accident caused by a drugged driver you owe it to yourself to contact the experienced Nashville personal injury lawyers at Philip Miller & Associates and share your facts with us for a free consultation. Call 615-356-2000.

Drunk Drivers Kill

A fiery crash in Bradley County claimed the life of a Charleston, Tennessee man Friday afternoon. The 37-year-old man was pronounced dead at the scene following a police chase that ended when he struck a concrete pillar, at the Harrison Pike over-pass.

The episode began when man hit a city officer’s patrol car at a gas station and took off. Shortly thereafter, the driver tried hitting another patrol car while fleeing the scene. During the chase the suspect was tossing beer bottles from the window of the Jeep before hitting the pillar.

According to local media reports none of the officers were injured. When one drinks and drives they are showing serious bad judgment. In this case that bad judgment continued when the driver tried to flee.

Drunk driving is one of America’s deadliest crimes. Here in Tennessee in 2008, 327 people were killed in crashes where the driver or motorcyclist had a blood alcohol concentration (BAC) of .08 or higher. That is down from 377 people killed in 2007 with a BAC of .08 or higher.

On average, a human being is killed by a drunk driver every 45 minutes. In 2008, an estimated 11,773 people died in drunk driving related crashed a decline of 9.8 percent from the 13,041 drunk driving related fatalities of 2007.

If you or a loved one is injured or killed in a Tennessee automobile accident caused by a drunk driver and you hope to recover all of the damages the law allows you need to consult with an experienced Tennessee automobile accident attorney like those at Phillip Miller & Associates. We offer a free consultation so that you can gain the information you will need to face this odyssey through the legal system.

Camera Enforcement Works

An interesting report from the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety shows that citizens support red light cameras.

Two-thirds of drivers in 14 big cities with longstanding red light camera programs support their use, a new survey from the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety indicates. The findings follow an Institute study demonstrating that cameras have reduced the rate of fatal red light running crashes by 24 percent in these same cities.

The strong public support confirms that red light camera opponents, while vocal and often influential, are a minority. Even in Houston, a city that voted in a November 2010 referendum to shut off its cameras, a majority of drivers say they favor red light camera enforcement.

“Most drivers don’t buy the argument that it’s somehow wrong to enforce the law just because you’re using a camera to do it,” says Anne McCartt, the Institute’s senior vice president for research. “They understand that this technology is preventing crashes in their cities.”

An Institute study released earlier this year showed that red light cameras save lives. Researchers looked at U.S. cities with populations over 200,000 and compared those with red light cameras to those without. In the 14 cities that had cameras in 2004-08 but didn’t have them in an earlier comparison period, automated red light enforcement saved 159 lives. If cameras had been operating in those years in all large U.S. cities, a total of 815 deaths would have been avoided.

As a follow-up, the Institute gauged drivers’ experience with cameras and their perceptions of them. More than 3,000 people in the 14 study cities were interviewed by cellphone and land line between Feb. 19 and March 29. The survey has a margin of error of about 2 percentage points. An additional 300 people were surveyed in Houston because of its recent vote to shut off the cameras. The city installed cameras in 2006, which was too late to be included in the crash study group. The Houston survey has a margin of error of 6 percentage points.

More than 9 of 10 drivers surveyed in the 14 cities believe running a red light is unacceptable, and more than 8 of 10 deem it a serious threat to personal safety. Two-thirds favor red light cameras, and 42 percent strongly favor them.

Among the 89 percent of drivers who are aware of the camera programs in their cities, a majority say the devices have made intersections safer. Nearly half know someone who has gotten a ticket, and 17 percent have gotten one themselves. Of the latter, about half believe it was deserved.

Previous surveys also have found widespread support for red light cameras, but opponents continue to claim that the programs violate privacy and are cooked up by cities merely to generate revenue. Voters in 8 cities have rejected camera programs in ballot initiatives during the past 3 years.

In Houston, where 53 percent of voters cast ballots against red light cameras in November, the people who went to the polls don’t seem to represent the majority of drivers. Fifty-seven percent of drivers there favor cameras, and 45 percent strongly favor them. However, opposition is firmer, with 28 percent saying they strongly oppose cameras versus 18 percent in the other 14 cities.

In the 14 study cities, a little more than a quarter of respondents said they oppose cameras. Asked why, 26 percent said cameras can make mistakes. The contention that cameras are about money, not safety, was mentioned by 26 percent. Nineteen percent said they make roads less safe and lead to more crashes, while 17 percent argued that they’re an invasion of privacy. The question was open-ended, and respondents could give as many reasons as they wanted.

The survey found less support for the use of cameras to crack down on right-on-red violations than for red light cameras generally. Such violations include making a right on red where it is not permitted and making the turn without stopping. Cities differ as to whether they issue tickets for rolling right-on-red turns when they are caught on camera. Nearly a fifth of drivers say they support cameras but oppose right-on-red enforcement. Forty-one percent of drivers support using cameras for these violations.

“Right-on-red violations usually aren’t associated with T-bone crashes, but they make intersections much more dangerous for pedestrians in particular,” McCartt says. “The survey results show cities need to do a better job explaining this issue to drivers.”

If you or a loved one is injured or killed in a Tennessee intersection collision contact the experienced Nashville automobile accident attorneys at Phillip Miller & Associates and take advantage of a free consultation. Call 615-356-2000.

Slow For Construction Zones

Two Manchester, Tennessee, tractor-trailer drivers, a man aged 59 and a woman aged 57, died in a three-vehicle accident on Wednesday on I-65 in Jasper County, Indiana. According to local media sources, traffic had slowed for a work zone and had narrowed to one lane. For some unknown reason the male driver failed to observed the slowed traffic and slammed into the rear of the Tractor-trailer in front of him and that one slammed into the tractor-trailer in front of him.

The deceased driver had on his seat belt but was crushed and the passenger did not have her seat belt on and was ejected from the vehicle. Investigators will have their hands full trying to figure out what caused the driver to fail to maintain control. Did he fall asleep? Was he distracted by something else, a cell phone, CB radio, eating or  talking to his passenger and not paying attention to the traffic.

Construction zones can present a driver with a challenge. The zones are usually well marked in advance and require vehicles to start reducing speed in preparation for the upcoming area on the road where the construction equipment and workers are located.

This weekend I drove from Nashville to St. Louis for some business and was amazed at how many drivers ignore the signs warning drivers to slow down for a construction zone and instead of following the slow-down suggestions use the opportunity to speed up and get ahead of the people in front of them. This dangerous behavior in turn brings out bad behavior in others who don’t want the cheaters to get ahead of them. Some of those people who are slowing down and forming one lane as directed begin to attempt to block and retaliate against the speeders by refusing to allow them to merge.

The other danger I noticed was the tailgating by some on those who reduce their speed as directed. When you reduce your speed from 70 mph to 55 mph you should, according to the Tennessee Rules Of The Road, keep one car length for every ten miles per hour you are traveling, not so in these Interstate construction zones. What happens is that the danger of a rear-end collision is magnified. Driver one is worried about the driver 2 right on his tail and is paying more attention to the tailgater then he is to the driver in front of him.

The Tennessee Department of Safety suggests the following:

* Slow down! Drive within the posted speed limits, which are usually reduced in work zones. If you don’t, you’ll pay the price.

* Don’t tailgate! Most work zone accidents are caused by rear-end collisions.

* Eliminate distractions! Put down the cell phone; leave the radio dial alone. This is not the time to look for a new CD!

* Keep your ears open! Do not wear earphones while driving.

* Merge early! You can be ticketed and the cause of an accident for being a last chance merger.

* Watch for flaggers! Follow their signals, and don’t change lanes within the work zone unless instructed to do so.

* Expect the unexpected! Work zones change constantly.

* Turn your lights on before you enter the zone! Turn on your vehicle’s headlights to become more visible to workers and other motorists.

* Stay calm! Remember the work zone crew members are working to improve your future ride.

If you or a loved one is injured or killed in a Tennessee construction zone accident it’s important that you secure the services of an experienced Nashville automobile accident attorney like those that you will find at Phillip Miller & Associates. Time is of the essence in these cases so contact us immediately at 615-356-2000.

Practice Motorcycle Safety

A motorcyclist lost his leg in Chattanooga crash last weekend following a serious crash on U.S. Highway 27 near the Martin Luther King Boulevard exit. The 56-year-old man lost control of his cycle and hit a guardrail. He was ejected from the cycle and thrown into the oncoming traffic and was hit by one or more vehicles traveling in the opposite direction. He is being treated for life-threatening injuries. Unfortunately this type of event is increasing in frequency and I’d like to bring you some important facts to consider.

According to the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) deaths from motorcycle crashes have more than doubled in the past decade from 2,116 in 1997 to 5,154 in 2007 up 6.6% from 4,837 in 2006. Add to that another 103,000 people who were injured in motorcycle crashes in 2007, up 17% from 88,000 in 2006.

The yearly number of motorcycle deaths is more than double the annual total number of people killed in all aviation, rail, marine and pipeline accidents combined, with head injuries as the leading cause of death in motorcycle crashes. In addition to the tragic loss of life, the economic cost to society is enormous.

In 2005, motorcyclists without helmets were involved in 36 percent of all motorcycle crashes, but represented 70 percent of the total cost of all motorcycle crashes – $12.2 billion. Medical and other costs for un-helmeted riders involved in crashes are staggering, estimated at $310,000 per accident.  That’s more than four times the overall cost of accidents involving helmeted riders.

If you are going to drive a motorcycle prepare yourself before taking to the highway. Take a course from a reputable group, wear leathers and most of all wear a highquality safety helmet.

If you or a loved one is injured or killed in a Tennessee motorcycle accident caused by negligent driver contact the experienced Nashville motorcycle accident lawyers at Phillip Miller & Associates and find out about your rights and remedies.