Get A Lawyer Now

I read this morning on a Memphis media web site about the death of a skateboarder who died after being run over by a garbage truck. This is one of the text-book cases that bring home my point that an accident victim or their family needs to immediately contact an experienced Tennessee automobile accident lawyer like the ones you will find at Phillip Miller & Associates in Nashville Tennessee.

The facts, simply stated, are that local skateboarders regularly use a church parking lot to get their thrills. The Pastor of the church was aware that the boarders regularly used the lot to skateboard, and according to the media report, was so concerned about the safety issue that he had planned have a youth summit to discuss the hazards of skateboarding. This can be an important issue for a trained personal injury lawyer. The church had knowledge of the danger and did nothing to prevent it from happening.

A quick review of the facts shows that each party to this tragedy, the boarder, the property owner, the garbage truck driver and his company bear some measure of responsibility for the death. To get to the bottom of this situation and collect damages an experienced Nashville automobile accident needs to be in on the case as soon as possible.

Contact the experienced Nashville auto accident attorneys at Phillip Miller & Associates and find out about your rights and remedies.

Too Young To Die

A pair of fatal Tennessee roadway departure crashes this week have left family and friends of the victims in shock. As an experienced Nashville automobile accident attorney we define an RDC as a non-intersection crash that occurs when a vehicle crosses an edge line or a centerline, or otherwise leaves the traveled way.

According to the Federal Highway Administration roadway departure crashes are frequently severe and account for the majority of highway fatalities. In 2008, there were 19,794 fatal roadway departure crashes resulting in 22,080 fatalities, which was 53 percent of the fatal crashes in the United States.

In Sumner County, Tennessee two teen boys were killed when the vehicle in which they were riding failed to negotiate a curve in the road, crossed the centerline and crashed into an oncoming vehicle. A 25-year-old Union City man crossed the centerline and over corrected, sending his pickup rolling into a ditch. The man was not wearing his seatbelt and was partially ejected and was dead at the scene. My prayers go out to the family and friends of these young men.

The lessons to be learned from these accidents are simple, but often not learned. The first crash was obviously due to an inexperienced driver going well in excess of the speed limit. The second was caused by inattention to the task at hand. The driver was somehow distracted and failed to stay in his lane. Speed could well have been a cause in this accident also.

If you or someone you love has been hurt in a serious Tennessee car accident due to somebody else’s negligence, then you may be feeling angry, frightened, or even alone in your suffering.

There is no reason for you to bear your burden alone.  The experience of a Tennessee auto accident is traumatic enough and your recovery will bring its own challenges.  You don’t need the added stress of worrying about who will pay for the medical care you need, how your car will be repaired, and if the individuals responsible for your suffering will be brought to justice.  This is the time to call Phillip Miller & Associates, the law firm of local Tennessee attorneys and staff who for the past 25 years have dedicated their lives to protecting the rights of injured men, women, and children in Tennessee.

Buckle Your Seat Belt And Arrive Alive

A few inches can make the difference between life and death. The Tennessee gravel truck driver’s right-side wheels were only inches off the right side of the roadway but inches were all that mattered when you are driving a loaded gravel truck. The few seconds it takes to secure your seatbelt can mean the difference between life and death. The Tennessee gravel truck driver didn’t have his seatbelt secured and when the truck rolled down an embankment and ejected him, crushing him, you have to know he wished he had those seconds and inches back for a do-over.

In life there are no do-overs. The cause of this man’s death is no mystery he was crushed by a fully loaded dump truck because he was ejected after leaving the roadway, because he didn’t have his seat belt on. The lesson here is patently obvious, take a second and put your seat belt on and live.

For more information about highway safety and some good Tennessee accident prevention tips go to my website at www.seriousinjury.com. If you need further information and or the advice of a group of experienced Tennessee automobile accident lawyers call Phillip Miller & Associates for the answers.

Buckle Up Or Die

So, what do you think was going on when a 28-year-old woman who is driving along a US Highway when she left the road, sideswiped a guardrail, crossed to the other side of the roadway, hit another guardrail, flipped and rolled down a steep embankment? Another question her family and friends are going to be asking themselves is why didn’t she take a moment and secure her seat belt? She was pronounced dead at the scene. Investigators said that an autopsy will be performed but the didn’t think that alcohol was a factor.

Distraction from the primary task of driving could present a serious and potentially deadly danger. In 2008, 5,870 people lost their lives and an estimated 515,000 people were injured in police-reported crashes in which at least one form of driver distraction was reported on the crash report.

As an experienced Nashville automobile accident attorney we know that these crashes are referred to as “Roadway Departure Crashes” (RDCs). The Federal Highway Administration defines a RDC as a non-intersection crash that occurs when a vehicle crosses an edge line or a centerline, or otherwise leaves the traveled way.

According to the Federal Highway Administration roadway departure crashes are frequently severe and account for the majority of highway fatalities. In 2008, there were 19,794 fatal roadway departure crashes resulting in 22,080 fatalities, which was 53 percent of the fatal crashes in the United States.

If you or a loved one is injured or killed in a Tennessee car crash by a distracted driver or a case like the present one that will require an experienced Tennessee automobile accident lawyer contact the lawyers at Phillip Miller & Associates for a free consultation to learn about your rights and remedies.

Distracted By A Bee

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.  Primary causes of driver inattention are distracting activities, such as cell phone use, and drowsiness.

Some distractions can be unavoidable, such as that with a recent tractor-trailer accident in Johnson City Tennessee. The driver was heading east on US Highway 11A when he was distracted by a bee in the cab of his truck. He attempted to swat the bee, lost control, left the road and rolled over in a ditch.

As an experienced Nashville automobile accident attorney we know that these crashes are referred to as “Roadway Departure Crashes” (RDCs). The Federal Highway Administration defines a RDC as a non-intersection crash that occurs when a vehicle crosses an edge line or a centerline, or otherwise leaves the traveled way.

According to the Federal Highway Administration roadway departure crashes are frequently severe and account for the majority of highway fatalities. In 2008, there were 19,794 fatal roadway departure crashes resulting in 22,080 fatalities, which was 53 percent of the fatal crashes in the United States.

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 car crash by a distracted driver or a case like the present one that will require and experienced Tennessee automobile accident lawyer contact the lawyers at Phillip Miller & Associates for a free consultation to learn about your rights and remedies.

Double Fatality

As an experienced Nashville automobile accident lawyer I have learned over the many years and many Tennessee automobile accident cases that most people have a higher opinion of their ability to driver than they actually possess. This faulty opinion leads them to believe that the Tennessee Rules of The Road and especially the speed limits do not apply to them.

Reference a single car crash in Knoxville that took the lives of two people in a roadway departure crash. The wreck occurred at  4 AM on Saturday morning. The crash investigators believe that speed was the cause of the accident.

The speed at which you drive determines how much time you have to act or react and how long it takes to stop. The higher the speed, the less time drivers have to spot hazards. Judge the speed of other traffic, and react to avoid the mistakes of other drivers.

The Basic Speed Rule (BSR) is not a Tennessee law, but it is a general safety principle. The BSR does not set an exact speed limit; instead, it teaches that the speed you may drive is limited by current conditions. For example, if the posted speed limit is 65 mph and you are driving at night on a two-lane state highway and it’s raining or foggy, 65 mph is too fast for those conditions.

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

City officials in Chattanooga, Tennessee haven’t been serious about enforcing parking and moving citations. When the monetary amount of unpaid tickets reached seven million dollars and the press found out about it, the response form the public was ugly. In an effort to recover the outstanding money the City gave ticket holders a grace period and a 25% discount to come in and take care of their tickets with no extra downside. The result of the amnesty was not as expected, only about 250 citizens took advantage of the program.

That grace period has expired and the embarrassed officials are now pulling out all of the stops. The city will use tire boots if an agent catches a heavy offender in the down town area, they will also use skip-tracers for those who have considerable debt, they will garnish wages and confiscate vehicle to hold for ransom until the offenders get right with Caesar.

As an experienced Nashville automobile accident attorney I advise you to avoid citations but in the event you can’t do so, I suggest that you pay them post haste. If you are stopped for a violation or you are involved in n accident and a warrant has issued for failure to pay you fine, the officer has no choice but to take you down to the jail and book you. Your car will be confiscated and held in an impoundment yard until you make right on your debt.

When you hire an attorney from Phillip Miller & Associates, you’re getting the whole package.  You don’t just get an extremely qualified and dedicated lawyer, you also get a loyal Tennessee resident who cares about the quality of life in their community and who puts their time and money into standing up for causes and charities they believe in.  You can read about some of the causes we support on our home page, along with a summary of our professional qualifications.  Additional details about our attorneys and staff can be found by viewing our personal profiles, where you can get to know the men and women who will be looking out for your best interest.

Please contact Phillip Miller & Associates today and take your first step forward towards putting the frustration and horror of your auto accident experience behind you.

Side Impact Crashes Often Deadly

More than 100,000 crashes a year are caused by drivers running red lights, killing some 950 people and injuring 90,000 others, making it a leading cause of fatal crashes in metropolitan areas, according to the Department of Transportation’s Federal Highway Administration (FHWA). Worse, the numbers are on the rise: Fatal motor vehicle crashes at traffic signals increased 19 percent nationally between 1992 and 1998 (the last year for which FHWA had statistics); over the same period, all other types of fatal crashes increased just 6 percent. This is a situation where people are dying from something that’s 100 percent preventable.”

The high fatality rate associated with red-light-running crashes is partly attributable to the fact that they are usually “T-bone,” or side-impact, crashes involving high speeds (since drivers often accelerate to get through a red light quickly). Indeed, images of vehicles broadsided at intersections often show cars cut in two or with pulverized midsections. “Of all the injuries we see, these are some of the worst,” says Harry Teter, executive director of the 2,200-member American Trauma Society. “You’re hitting the most vulnerable part of the car.”

Moreover, 53 percent of drivers in a 2008 online poll said their cars were not equipped with head-protecting side-curtain air bags, even though these devices cut driver deaths in side-impact crashes by nearly half. (Last year the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration issued a new regulation that mandates that new passenger cars have side air bags by 2012.)

If you or a loved one is injured or killed in a Tennessee red light running crash, you owe it to yourself and your family to contact an experienced Tennessee automobile accident lawyer like those that you will find at Phillip Miller & Associates. Call for a free consultation so that you can learn about your rights and remedies.

Motorcycle Wreck

An inexperienced driver, a high-powered motorcycle, high speeds and a windy road spell disaster for a Hendersonville couple. The good news is that neither of them died, the bad news is that they are both hospitalized in critical condition.

Reports in Nashville area media sources say that the male driver was speeding on a friends motorcycle and tried to negotiate a turn and slammed into a guard rail near Rockland Park. Tests are pending to determine whether drugs or alcohol were a factor in this crash.

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 2007, 2,641 (50%) of all motorcycles involved in fatal crashes collided with another type of motor vehicle in transport. In two-vehicle crashes, 78 percent of the motorcycles involved were struck in the front. Only 5 percent were struck in the rear. Motorcycles are more likely to be involved in a fatal collision with a fixed object than are other vehicles. In 2007, 25 percent of the motorcycles involved in fatal crashes collided with fixed objects, compared to 18 percent for passenger cars, 13 percent for light trucks, and 3 percent for large trucks.

As an experienced Nashville automobile accident attorney I couldn’t help but think of the many factors that could have caused this near fatal Tennessee motorcycle accident. If you or a loved one is injured or killed in a Tennessee roadway collision by a speeding motorcycle driver contact the experienced Tennessee motorcycle crash lawyers at Phillip Miller & Associates and find out about your rights and remedies.

Agressive Driving

Lately this Tennessee automobile accident lawyer has been giving a lot of thought to acts of aggressive driving. A recent article on the website of the Atlanta-Journal-Constitution points out an incident on I-285 that epitomizes the thoughtless nature of aggressive drivers who choose to put the lives of other drivers on the line so that they can get the thrill of drag racing.

According to the article two cars were racing on I-285 when one of them clipped another car and then, at high speed, hit three other cars, sending at least three people, with moderate to mild injuries, to the hospital and leaving thousands of dollars of damaged vehicle. Instead of stopping to see if they could help the inured, the cowardly jerks fled the scene.

Aggressive driving is a traffic offense or combination of offenses such as following too closely, speeding, unsafe lane changes, failing to signal intent to change lanes, and other forms of negligent or inconsiderate driving. Unfortunately, these actions put the rest of us at risk.

Aggressive driving is a major concern of the American public, ranking at or near the top of traffic safety issues in national surveys of motorists. In Tennessee and throughout the country, the public’s concern over aggressive driving continues to grow. Some studies indicate the public is actually more fearful of aggressive drivers than it is of impaired drivers. Aggressive driving is truly dangerous and cannot be tolerated.

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